Background on the Theory
The Theory of Bureaucratic Nursing stemmed from a qualitative research initiated by Dr. Marilyn Ray involving 200 participants from a wide selection of hospital areas including administration, clinical nursing units, nursing administration and nutrition support to name a few.
The study involved different qualitative methods namely grounded theory, phenomenology and ethnography. The research of Dr. Ray aimed to identify the meaning of caring from different points of view in the context of a healthcare organization being multi-structural and multi-cultural. Dr. Ray was able to illustrate the association between care and the hospital as an organization comprising of cultures.
In a fast-paced changing world, healthcare has evolved into a multi-faceted industry where care is equated to costs and/or revenue. Caring therefore has progressed from its spiritual and humanistic dimension to a more modern legal, technological and economic definition.
Dr. Marilyn Ray’s study revealed both differential caring and bureaucratic nursing as substantive and formal theories respectively. The research showed that the definition of nursing care has been associated to the dominant culture of an organization or specific units thereof depending on the organizational beliefs and goals in the context of the said units. Varied definitions of caring, hence, were shown i.e. caring as more technological in critical care units and caring as more spiritual and emotional in oncology units.
Dr. Marilyn Ray’s study revealed both differential caring and bureaucratic nursing as substantive and formal theories respectively. The research showed that the definition of nursing care has been associated to the dominant culture of an organization or specific units thereof depending on the organizational beliefs and goals in the context of the said units. Varied definitions of caring, hence, were shown i.e. caring as more technological in critical care units and caring as more spiritual and emotional in oncology units.
The formal theory of bureaucratic caring showed that caring and management can exist side by side as administrators now view nursing care as an investment or a resource of the organization. The theory serves as a synthesis of the ideas revolving around organizational decisions (from careful consideration of corporate needs) in light of the basic humanistic care needs
References:
Davidson, A. W., Ray, M. A., Turkel, M. C. (2011). Complex caring dynamics: A unifying model of nursing inquiry. Nursing, caring, and complexity science: For human-environment well-being (pp. 29-37). Retrieved from http://media.axon.es/pdf/
Florida Atlantic University. (2014). Faculty pages: Marilyn (Dee) Ray. Retrieved September 17, 2014, fromhttp://nursing.fau.edu/index.
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