Survey reveals how nurses would like to allocate their shift hours

Editor’s Note

Nurses would like to significantly increase time spent with patients, coaching fellow nurses, and pursuing professional growth, according to survey data published on May 26 by McKinsey & Company. The survey included questions regarding how nurses spend their time during a typical shift (broken down across 69 specific activities) and how they would like to spend their time.

Conducted this past spring, here are some findings of the survey that involved 240 participating nurses:

• About half of the 2 million inpatient nurses in the US—45%—reported they are likely to leave their roles in the next 6 months, as of March 2023
• Reasons for leaving include not feeling valued and not having a manageable workload
• Nurses spend 54% of their shift—about 7 hours—providing direct patient care
• They spend just 2% of their shift teaching others, including peers and students, and would like to double that time
• Nurses also want to more than double the time they spend on professional growth and development, which is currently about 7% of their shift time; this includes participating in shared governance, completing annual requirements, and continuing education hours

The participating nurses would also like to spend less time on tasks including documentation, hunting and gathering, and administrative and support tasks—many of which could be improved with technology tools or delegated to support staff, the report noted.