Co-design of an intervention to reduce the burden of clinical documentation: A clinician-researcher collaboration

Aim: To co-design an intervention to reduce the burden of clinical documentation for nurses and midwives.

Methods: A clinician-researcher collaboration used an action research approach to co-design an intervention to reduce clinical documentation. The study consisted of three phases: 1) Analysis of pre-intervention data, 2) Evaluation of existing documentation, 3) Intervention co-design and implementation.

Results: A total of 116 documents were reviewed using a three-stage evaluation process, identifying 28 documents that could be discontinued and 33 documents to be modified for the intervention. This resulted in an average of 7 documents for women who had a vaginal birth (decreased from 13), 9 documents for women who had a caesarean (decreased from 18), and 7 documents for newborns (previously 7-10). The minimum number of documents for a mother and baby reduced from 20 pre-intervention to 14 post-intervention.

Conclusion: The collaboration successfully co-designed and implemented an intervention to address the burden of clinical documentation that can be replicated in other healthcare settings.