About TRACT

Find out more about how TRACT was developed and the reasons behind the Care Trajectory Management tool.

Built for nurses, by nurses:
Why TRACT was developed

The development of TRACT was led by Davina Allen, Professor of Nursing at Cardiff University. The aim was to create a tool to ensure that the organisational aspects of nursing work were included in assessments of the nursing workload for the purposes of workforce management.

Professor Allen carried out in-depth research which examined for the first time the organisational elements of nursing in order to better understand this taken-for-granted nursing function.

The study highlighted that the work nurses do to organise and coordinate trajectories of care is a safety critical function, which needs to be formally acknowledged as a core component of the professional nursing role.

Find out more at The Invisible Work of Nurses website.

TRACT's mission is to transform patient care management by providing an intuitive tool that streamlines processes, enhances decision making, and fills a gap in organisational care management. Our aim is to work in conjunction with existing systems, improving efficiency and patient outcomes by offering real-time insights and a more comprehensive understanding of healthcare work.

Substantial evidence relates lower nurse staffing levels to adverse patient outcomes. Ensuring there are adequate nurses to meet patient need is an international policy priority.

Nurse leaders need high quality comprehensive and timely information to deploy nurses effectively. It is important therefore that workload assessment tools capture the full breadth of nursing activity

A range of methods exist for the purposes of determining nurse staffing levels (establishment setting) and informing the daily deployment of staff in response to fluctuating demand patterns.

Existing workload measurement tools focus on patient acuity or care dependency. The organisational aspects of nursing work are not captured by these methods. This means that currently nursing work is only partially recorded and workload modelling and staff deployment fails to capture all aspects of the complexity and volume of nursing work.

Our mission

Applying TRACT in other applications beyond workload measurement

TRACT was developed through an iterative process of engagement with nurses. Our original aim was to develop a workload measurement tool, but nurses highlighted the additional value of the tool for planning, unit management, research, and education.

We have been able to accommodate these additional applications into TRACT.

The development of TRACT has been led by Professor Davina Allen, supported through two UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Impact Accelerator Awards. This funding scheme is intended to support the translation of social sciences research into societal impacts.

The research team for study 1 included Dr Heather Strange, a medical sociologist and Alison Evans, an experienced senior nurse and lecturer. The research team for study 2 included Dr Heather Strange, Alison Evans and Dr Maxim Filimonov, a research software engineer.  

TRACT was developed through engagement with nurses from Cardiff & Vale University Health Board, and an international advisory group of nurse academics and policy leaders.

How was TRACT developed?

“The organisational components of nursing practice are safety critical.  Poor care coordination is a leading cause of failure in healthcare quality and safety. TRACT provides nurses with a simple means of assessing, measuring, planning and managing the organisational aspects of patient care.”

Prof. Davina Allen
Cardiff University

Awards & recognition

  • Fellow of Academy of Social Sciences

    2016

  • Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales

    2022

  • Adjunct Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

    Current

  • Adult Nurse (Cambridge and Huntingdon School of Nursing)

    1986

Finally, the planning solution that nurses and patients need

An easy-to-use app designed to transform the way you practise nursing. A comprehensive toolkit developed by experienced nursing professionals, this app is your one-stop solution for a wide range of nursing needs.