A Study of Clinical Nurse Coordinator Roles

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the roles of clinical nurse coordinators based on Ethnographic Delphi Future Research (EDFR). Nineteen informants came from four groups of people comprising six multidisciplinary experts, two academics specializing in clinical nurse coordinators, four nursing administrators and seven nurses working as clinical nurse coordinators. The research methodology was conducted as follows: the first round involving the interviews about the roles of the clinical nurse coordinator, the second round creating a questionnaire based on the information obtained from the interviews and asking experts to evaluate the importance of the roles, and the third determining the mean and quartile range of the information from the second round to finalize the questionnaire. The questionnaire was reviewed by experts before a summary of the roles of a clinical nurse coordinator was carried out.

The findings revealed that the roles of a clinical nurse coordinator can be classified into the following five major roles: 1) Care manager: consisting of 10 sub-roles concerning taking care of a patient from admission to discharge. 2) Data and information manager: consisting of 4 sub-roles concerning data management and analysis to determine the likely cause of the disease and treatment 3) Clinical counselor: consisting of 7 sub-roles concerning the provision of patients and their families with consultation and health care personnel with treatment for certain patients. 4) Clinical quality operator: consisting of 6 sub-roles concerning activities organized to improve patient care.5) Clinical advocator: consisting of 6 sub-roles concerning protecting the patient’s rights to treatment.