Work Designs: Sociotechnical Systems for Patient Care Delivery

Redesigning work patterns is becoming a highly significant activity in nursing administration. Striking a balance between adapting jobs to people and adapting people to jobs is a beneficial approach. Work design experts now recommend the Sociotechnical Systems (STS) approach which provides a comprehensive method for doing this. It aims at work designs which neither compromise the integrity of people to achieve work efficiency nor compromise productivity to satisfy people. Rather than focusing the organization on reducing immediate tensions and errors, the STS approach encourages a holistic perspective oriented toward the enterprise's long-term purpose. Insights from economic analogies can help designers see nursing as an integral part of the total patient care delivery system. The most promising models of outcome-oriented patient care blend clinical and economic case management into operational redesign.