Complexity Compression
The Tipping Point for Nurse in the Practice Environment
Complexity Compression News, Updates
- Read H.J. Cummins report in the Star Tribune.
- Read our published work in Nursing Forum
- Nurses Stories - Erin Mitchell and Bonnie LaPlant
- Share your story
- Recent Presentations
- Literature
- Take an online survey
- Awareness of Complexity Compression in Nursing Practice
- Learn More/Contact Us
It has been estimated that up to 40% of the workday of nurses is taken up by meeting the ever-increasing demands of the systems of health care delivery in which nurses are employed. These demands include the need for increasing documentation, for learning new and seemingly ever-changing procedures, and for adapting to turnover in management and administration.
Attention to these issues also means that 40% of that workday is not available to patients. Believing that these increasing demands are affecting nurses's decisions to remain in nursing, a collaborative group of nurses researchers examined the work environments of nurses and the issues related to those environments.
The result of this examination was discovery of a phenomenon affecting all nurses that may be central to the shortage of nurses. The phenomenon is complexity compression, what nurses experience when expected to assume additional, unplanned responsibilities while simultaneously conducting their multiple responsibilities in a condensed time frame.
The phenomenon was validated by a group of nurses who participated in focus groups that led to the identification of factors incfluencing the experience of complexity compression. In the most recent factor analysis with a correlation among the items, the three factors that constitute the phenomenon of complexity compression are the work of nursing factor, the systems factor, and the personal factor.
The work of nursing factor includes the elements within the workplace that occur unexpectedly and that directly interfere with nurses's ability to carry out their work.
The system factor includes unforeseen elements in the workplace that originate in the organization's structure and administration that affect the ability of the nurses to carry out their responsibilities within the time allotted.
The personal factor includes the individual nurse and/or her/his immediate personal situation and contains unexpected occurrences that interfere with her/his ability to carry out work related responsibilities in the allotted time.
