Abstract—Head nurses play important roles in communication among staff. However, there is no evidence to confirm to what extent physicians and nurses rely on head nurses to communicate. This study was designed to explore the importance of head nurses in communication among physicians and nurses. Using 11 nursing units of two hospitals in Taiwan as examples, we applied social network analysis (SNA) on analyzing networking properties among staff to see the role of head nurses in communication. Results of SNA showed that the ranges of network centralization for interaction and advice-seeking networks were from 19.85% to 81.82%. Therefore, it is important to enhance the communication skills of head nurses. Equipment and technology to facilitate communication among providers are also very important. Index Terms—Social network analysis, network centralization, communications. I. INTRODUCTION There are many expectations for the roles played by head nurses. In addition to planning, organizing, and directing health services provided by staff nurses in nursing units, head nurses have to mentor, facilitate and evaluate junior members. Sometimes, head nurses need to coordinate staff nurses or communicate with physicians within or between units. To fulfill these expectations, communication is one of the most important competencies that head nurses must possess. A. Importance of Communication in Health Care The role of communication in healthcare teams is critical. An Australian study suggested that poor communication wastes time, threatens patient care, and may be one of the leading cause of preventable adverse events in clinical practice [1]. Barriers to effective teams and communication include different professions (disciplines), educational background, large team size, instability of the workforce and assignments, the absence of a common purpose, and inappropriate physical environment (e.g., lack of space and overcrowded spaces, design and layout of work stations) [2]-[4]. Some articles indicate that poor communication among physicians and nursing staff is a common phenomenon. For examples, physicians often are reluctant to accept opinions from nursing staff. Additionally, inaccurate vocabularies used among providers may also lead to poor communication. Poor communication among physicians and nursing staff often negatively impact patient care quality, especially during patient care or transferring processes. The effects of poor communication may cause harm to patients [5], [6]. As a result, effective and good communication is the basis for providing quality patient care and ensuring patient safety. Traditionally, the nurses’ station is the place for entering orders, notes and observations into the chart as well as a space for the clerk(s), a few small work spaces for nurses or physicians to sit down to write and a small space for physician dictation. In the past, a major effort of nurses’ station design was tried to facilitate such chart handling by many people without the chart being lost. In addition, the nurses’ station should be able to create an environment for friendship and teamwork. B. Significance of This Study Nursing unit is one of the most important spaces in hospitals. Within a nursing unit, nurses’ station is an imperative space in support of staff’s practice. Appropriate design of nurses’ station should be able to restructure the practice of healthcare staff and fulfill the needs of patient care. In today’s medical society, due to rapidly changing professional practice, nurses’ station should be designed as a space for senior staff to pass on their experience and knowledge to their junior colleagues so that nurses’ station can be a space for accumulating experience and knowledge, as well as mentoring. The design of nurses’ stations can be categorized into two broad categories: centralized and decentralized. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Fig. 1. Floor plan of a sample centralized nursing unit. The floor plan of a centralized nursing unit in this study is The Role of Head Nurse on Communication: A Social Network Approach Chia-Hui Wang, Kathryn Anthony, and Nai-Wen Kuo International Journal of Future Computer and Communication, Vol. 5, No. 1, February 2016 43 doi: 10.18178/ijfcc.2016.5.1.441 Manuscript received October 5, 2015; revised December 10, 2015. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C., under Grant No. 100-2410-H-146-002-MY2. Chia-Hui Wang is with Hwa-Hsia University of Technology, New Taipei 23568, Taiwan (e-mail: chwang@cc.hwh.edu.tw). Kathryn Anthony is with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign 61820, USA (e-mail: kanthony@illinois.edu). Nai-Wen Kuo is with Taipei Medical University, Taipei11031, Taiwan (e-mail: nwkuo@tmu.edu.tw).