Different Kinds of Overview in Nurses' information work: Nurses’ Use of Data for Coordinating Patient Care and Continuity of Nursing Duties at Work Shifts.

Nurses search for different kinds of overview in their use of data for clinical care. This study of nurses’ shift of duties on a internal medical ward points to three kinds of overview: i. an overview in the beginning of their duty in order to plan and distribute the coming work tasks of their day, evening or night shift, ii an individual, professional overview in order to envi-sion the course of care events within their hours of duty, and iii. an overview of the situation of each individual patient. The nurses gather information from numerous sources, verbally as well as written on paper or electronically. The identification and descriptions of clinical constellations of data can inform on system design in order to improve on usability and utility of information systems in clinical practices. Qualitative methods of observations and focus group interviews were used studying the logic of nurses’ information practice.