Functioning and nursing workload in patients undergoing acute rehabilitation

Background: Patients with an acute illness or injury have a high chance to survive if appropriate medical and surgical care is provided. Many of them, however, experience a significant loss of functioning. Nurses have an important part in preventing disability in the acute hospital. Consequently, nursing interventions are triggered by patients' functioning. However, rather than being based on functioning current hospital payment systems are based on medical diagnoses. To date there is no evidence on the association between distinct aspects of functioning and nursing workload. The International Classification of…