Swinderman, Todd D.

A descriptive study of caring in nurse managers as described by staff nurses is presented. Five participants provided data from semi-structured, open ended, audiotape recorded interviews. The transcribed interview data were coded, concepts were identified, and the conceptual unit of meaning emerged. A conceptual model was developed and subsequently was analyzed in relation to Boykin's and Schoenhofer's (1993) Nursing as Caring Theory. It was discovered that staff nurses respect a nurse manager when she participates in direct nursing care, provides for the overall needs of the unit by negotiating with administrators, and nurtures nurses through listening to, encouraging, supporting and role modeling. Recommendations for nursing administration, practice, education and research are presented.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the meaning of transition from the art of handwritten nursing documentation to electronic documentation from the lived experiences of nurse informaticians. Chaos Theory within Complexity Sciences and Ray's Bureaucratic Caring Theory informed the study. The Swinderman Research Model was created to visualize the tension between order and chaos in nursing practice. Twelve nurse informaticians were interviewed about their experiences in designing, building, implementing and supporting electronic nursing documentation systems using van Marten's human science phenomenological method. Descriptive themes where illuminated and metathemes were interpreted from the research data. The universal whole of nursing informatics was expressed as self-in-relation through the metaphor of magnetic appeal linking the metathemes of inspired leadership and education, caring relationships, complexity, and technology. The metaphor of magnetic appeal illuminates the nurse informatician as the embodiment of caring with gifts as educator, negotiator, translator, and liaison. The Swinderman Research Model was enhanced using the research to create further the Swinderman Conceptual Model for Nursing Informatics. Chaos Theory within Complexity Sciences facilitated the understanding of the subtle dynamic patterns of flux and flow and choice-making in nursing. The Swinderman Conceptual Model for Nursing Informatics emerged as the future of Nursing Informatics in the transformation from handwritten to electronic nursing documentation in complex healthcare organizations.