Workarounds: The Hidden Pathway to Excellence

Nurses are regularly celebrated as creative, resourceful professionals who are able to make things work when few others can. The ability to create and implement workarounds to speed up processes is a common practice that has not been studied in depth. In spite of the perceived value of workarounds, one wonders if there is a dark side to workarounds. Workarounds may, in fact, be an obstacle to progress, an obstacle to achieving practice excellence, and may present a false sense of effectiveness. Further study is needed to determine whether workarounds are creativity gone awry.