Registered Nurses and Practical Nurses Working Together: An Institutional Ethnography

Abstract

In Canada, different categories of nursing professionals, including registered nurses and practical nurses, often “collaborate” to provide care to patients. How their collaboration is currently conceptualized in the literature varies; and these conceptualizations are not always contextualized by the complex sociopolitical environment in which nursing professionals work. The purpose of this study was to explicate how different categories of nursing professionals (registered nurses and practical nurses) worked together to provide patient care after a provincial health authority implemented a new nursing care delivery model to “optimize” patient care. The authors used Smith’s institutional ethnography to guide the study, and data collection methods included observing, conducting interviews, and identifying the texts activated through the nursing professionals’ work. Data analysis focused on the social organization of the nursing professionals collaboration, while keeping the complex contexts within they completed their daily work in view. The article concludes with recommendations for future research.