– The purpose of this paper is to underline the importance of taking work practices into account for quality improvement (QI) purposes, highlight some of the challenges of doing so, and suggest strategies for future research and practice. Patient status at a glance, a Lean-inspired QI intervention designed to alleviate nurses of their knowledge mobilisation function, is deployed as an illustrative case.
– Ethnographic data and practice-based theories are utilised to describe nurses’ knowledge mobilisation work. The assumptions about knowledge sharing embedded in patient status at a glance white boards (PSAGWBs) are analysed drawing on actor network theory.
– There is a disparity between nurses’ knowledge mobilisation practices and the scripts that inform the design of PSAGWBs. PSAGWBs are designed to be intermediaries and to transport meaning without transformation. When nurses circulate knowledge for patient management purposes, they operate as mediators, translating diverse information sources and modifying meaning for different audiences. PSAGWBs are unlikely to relieve nurses of their knowledge mobilisation function and may actually add to the burdens of this work. Despite this nurses have readily embraced this QI intervention.