The staff’s views on what’s the job – the starting point for quality improvement in health care

Describes 12 members of staff’s views of their job and tasks in an intensive care unit of a middle‐sized Swedish hospital. Open‐ended questions were asked and the interviews were analysed using thematic technique. The character of the work and the work tasks was the key variable in the analysis. The participants thought of intensive care as turbulent and ambiguous, powerful but also menacing and a concept comprised of a dichotomy of fundamental values. The work task of the participants was conceptualised in terms of managing the health status of the patient, seeking to appreciate the patient’s needs and ensuring that the staff worked harmoniously and effectively as a team. Speculates that the existence of a real dichotomy in fundamental values might be caused by the difficult medical reality on the ward. The study confirms a necessity for a two‐dimensional quality system where the deeper dimension deals with the disparate set of meaning status in the future perspective.