| Course | NSG 421 Nursing Informatics |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 3 |
| Paper type | Documentation burden log |
| Length | About 720 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | BSN |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NSG 421 Unit 3
One Twelve-Hour Day Shift Counted Hour by Hour: Documentation Events, Minutes, and Every Entry That Repeated Something the Record Already Held
Student Name
Department of Nursing, Herzing University
NSG 421: Nursing Informatics
Instructor Name
January 30, 2026
One Twelve-Hour Day Shift Counted Hour by Hour: Documentation Events, Minutes, and Every Entry That Repeated Something the Record Already Held
Method
A nursing student shadowed one staff nurse caring for five patients on the composite medical-surgical unit from Units 1 and 2, from 0700 to 1900, with her agreement. A documentation event was counted each time she opened a chart section and entered or signed anything. Minutes were measured with a stopwatch from opening the section to closing it. An event was marked as a duplicate if it entered information that the record already held elsewhere for the same patient and time.
Tally Sheet
Hour blocks begin on the hour.
| Hour | Events | Minutes | Duplicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0700 | 9 | 14 | 1 |
| 0800 | 14 | 22 | 3 |
| 0900 | 11 | 17 | 2 |
| 1000 | 8 | 12 | 1 |
| 1100 | 10 | 15 | 2 |
| 1200 | 12 | 19 | 2 |
| 1300 | 7 | 10 | 1 |
| 1400 | 9 | 13 | 1 |
| 1500 | 6 | 8 | 0 |
| 1600 | 11 | 16 | 2 |
| 1700 | 13 | 20 | 3 |
| 1800 | 10 | 25 | 2 |
| Total | 120 | 191 | 20 |
The Duplicates
Twenty duplicate entries were counted. They fell into four kinds.
Pain score entered twice, once on the flowsheet and again on the medication administration screen, for each as-needed pain dose: 7 times. The same score was already in the record from a few minutes earlier.
Vital signs typed by hand into the nursing note after being entered on the flowsheet, so that the note would read as complete: 5 times. The flowsheet already held the values with times.
Skin assessment entered in the head-to-toe assessment and again in a separate wound flowsheet for two patients without wounds, because the wound flowsheet required a daily entry once opened: 4 times.
Fall risk score re-entered at 1800 for the end-of-shift summary, after it had been entered at 0800 and nothing had changed: 4 times.
Results
The nurse spent 191 minutes, just over three hours, in documentation events across the 12-hour shift, about 27% of the shift. In a 36-hospital study that timed medical-surgical nurses' work, researchers found documentation to be the largest single share of nursing practice time, at about 35% (Hendrich et al., 2008); this one shift sits below that figure, but the methods differ, since the study included all documentation time and this log counted only time with a chart section open.
The 20 duplicate events took about 24 minutes in total, around one in eight documentation minutes. None added clinical information; each existed because two screens did not share a value, a field required an entry once opened, or a summary did not pull an existing value forward. Reviews of documentation burden describe duplicate entry as one of the measurable features of the problem, alongside time and the number of clicks (Moy et al., 2021).
The busiest hours for documentation were 0800 and 1700 to 1800, around medication passes and the end of the shift. The 1800 block ran long because the nurse caught up on notes she had not had time for earlier, which is where duplicates such as the re-entered fall scores accumulated.
What the Nurse Said About the Numbers
When the tally was shown to the nurse at the end of the shift, she was surprised by the total but not by the duplicates. "I know I type the pain score twice," she said. "I didn't know it was seven times." She explained the hand-typed vital signs in her notes as a habit from a previous hospital where the note was printed and sent with patients on transfer, and the flowsheet was not. That explanation matters: one of the four kinds of duplicate comes from a reasonable habit carried over from another system, not from this system's design, and could be addressed by a short conversation rather than a build change. She asked for a copy of the duplicate list to take to the unit's practice council.
What the Log Does and Does Not Show
The log shows where duplicate entry happens on this unit and roughly how much time it takes on one day for one nurse. It does not show whether another nurse, a heavier assignment, or a night shift would look the same, and it does not measure the time spent reading the record, which is part of the burden too. The duplicate pain score, the most frequent kind, is the same duplicate found in the single-task workflow record in Unit 2, which suggests it is built into the system rather than a habit of one nurse. That makes it the obvious candidate for Unit 7's change request. The course text treats duplicate data entry as a design problem rather than a user problem (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2022).
References
Hendrich, A., Chow, M. P., Skierczynski, B. A., & Lu, Z. (2008). A 36-hospital time and motion study: How do medical-surgical nurses spend their time? The Permanente Journal, 12(3), 25-34. https://doi.org/10.7812/TPP/08-021
McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2022). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Moy, A. J., Schwartz, J. M., Chen, R., Sadri, S., Lucas, E., Cato, K. D., & Rossetti, S. C. (2021). Measurement of clinical documentation burden among physicians and nurses using electronic health records: A scoping review. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 28(5), 998-1008. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa325
What the NSG 421 Unit 3 instructions ask for
Unit 3 asks you to measure documentation burden over a shift. Expect to describe your method, keep a tally of documentation events and time, identify duplicate entries, report results, include the nurse's view and state limits. Students often ask how to measure time without a stopwatch for every click and what counts as a duplicate. Tally events by hour with start and stop times. A duplicate is the same information entered in more than one place. Group duplicates by kind, since kinds point to fixes. Ask the nurse what she thinks of the numbers. One shift cannot represent a unit, so state that. Get permission before shadowing and keep patients unidentifiable. Note whether each event happened at the bedside or at a workstation.
How this NSG 421 Unit 3 example is built
The log opens with method: who was shadowed, how many patients and how events were timed. The tally sheet lists hour blocks with event counts and minutes. The duplicates section groups twenty repeats into four kinds with examples. The results section totals time and shows it as a share of the shift. The nurse's view section records her surprise and her explanation for one duplicate she chose to keep. The limits section explains why one shift on one unit is a starting point. Every number comes from the tally, so a reader could check the totals, and the duplicate kinds lead naturally into the change request in Unit 7.
Where the points sit in the NSG 421 Unit 3 rubric
Herzing's rubric for a documentation burden log usually covers method, the tally, identification of duplicates, results, the nurse's perspective and limits. Duplicate identification and grouping carry the most weight, since they show where burden could be cut. Method points reward a clear description of shadowing and timing. Tally criteria look for hour-by-hour counts and minutes. Results earn credit when totals are accurate and shown as a share of the shift. Nurse perspective points go to her own words about the findings. Limits should be specific, such as one nurse and one day. Hendrich's time-and-motion study and the 25 by 5 symposium findings support the analysis. Separating bedside from workstation documentation is often credited, since it shows where time goes.
Common NSG 421 Unit 3 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Burden logs in Unit 3 commonly lose points by estimating time rather than tallying it. Another frequent problem is listing duplicates without grouping them by kind. Students often skip the nurse's view, which explains why some repeats exist. Totals do not add up from the tally. Limits are not stated. Patient details appear. Documentation done at the bedside is not separated from documentation at a workstation. Interruptions are not counted, though they lengthen events. Finally, group duplicates by kind, because graders reward a log that points to specific fixes rather than a general complaint about charting. Another gap is forgetting to count time spent searching for information already charted, which is part of the burden.
Get a NSG 421 Unit 3 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 3 instructions and the rubric from your NSG 421 classroom, with any tally form or data collection sheet the course supplies. We write a custom example that counts documentation events across a composite shift, lists the duplicated fields separately, keeps raw units beside the totals and states what the count cannot show. First custom sample free, back in 24 to 48 hours.
More NSG 421 papers and BSN samples
- NSG 421 Unit 1: Informatics support pathway map
- NSG 421 Unit 2: Charting workflow record
- NSG 421 Unit 4: Data entry to report trace
- NSG 421 Unit 5: Alert response record
- NSG 421 Unit 6: Chart access boundary record
- NSG 421 Unit 7: End user change request
- NSG 421 Unit 8: Bedside technology evidence file
- NSG 298 Unit 3: Calculation error trace
- NSG 423 Unit 3: Workplace issue brief
- NSG 633 Unit 3: Unit level hazard walk
- NSG 660 Unit 3: Source credibility comparison
NSG 421 Unit 3 questions, answered
Where do the numbers come from if the shift is composite?
They come from the structure of the work rather than from a real chart: how many entries a documentation set contains, how many times a field recurs across it, how long a block of charting plausibly runs. The log says openly that the shift was constructed, which is why the discussion stays modest about what the totals establish.
May I use figures published in the literature?
Yes, and cite them where you do. Published counts give the log something to sit against, and most sections welcome the comparison as long as the two sets of numbers are kept apart on the page. What causes trouble is a published figure quoted as though it came from the shift being described, which makes the whole log unreadable.
Can the log recommend changes to the system?
Keep that for the later unit, where a request goes through a channel that exists. This document measures and reports, and a log that ends in redesign proposals has moved into work the graduate courses cover from a different position. Where your instructions ask for implications, write them as questions the count raises rather than as changes somebody should make.
Where can I find a free NSG 421 Unit 3 sample paper?
The full NSG 421 Unit 3 documentation burden log is free on this page, one shift tallied hour by hour with twenty duplicates grouped. Your own shadowing notes can become a custom log on request.
How much time do nurses spend documenting?
Studies report a large share of each shift. This sample tallies one twelve-hour shift and finds about 191 minutes, just over three hours, in documentation, including twenty duplicate entries.