Project Details

Context

One approach to meeting the complex care challenges posed by demographic and epidemiological changes is the introduction of a tiered qualification system in nursing, in which the specialist level with three years of vocational training is supplemented by nursing assistants with two years of training and nurses with a Bachelor's degree. By combining different qualification levels within a nursing team (qualification mix or degree mix), the qualifications available among nurses are to be adapted more optimally than before to the care needs to be covered by them. This potential faces a number of as yet unresolved problems. In particular, there is a lack of a precise definition of the tasks of the different qualification levels for different settings.

In other European countries, concepts for a tiered competence model already exist. In Germany, qualification frameworks have been developed for the employment areas of “care, support and assistance for older people” and “care and personal assistance for older people”. No qualifications frameworks have yet been developed for other areas of employment, particularly the hospital sector.

Aim of the project/research questions

The aim of the qualitative study is to determine the quantitative and qualitative requirements for a successful mix of qualifications with the integration of healthcare and nursing assistants or nursing assistants (with a generalist orientation), nurses with vocational training and nurses with a university education into a nursing team. Among other things, possible discipline-specific differences and effects on the quality of care and cooperation are to be identified.

Methods

The evaluation will be carried out on three wards in three different hospitals in northern Germany, where a mix of qualifications consisting of nursing assistants, professionally trained nurses and university-trained nurses is already in place. The data collection is based on participant observation, document analysis, group interviews and individual interviews.

Darmann-Finck, Ingrid; Baumeister, Andreas & Greiner, Agnes-Dorothee (2016): “Qualification mix in inpatient care in hospitals”. Project report. North German Center for the Further Development of Nursing (NDZ); Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP) Bremen.