Background: Over the last decades, converging forces in hospital care, including cost-containment policies, rising
healthcare demands and nursing shortages, have driven the search for new operational models of nursing care
delivery that maximize the use of available nursing resources while ensuring safe, high-quality care. Little is known,
however, about the distinctive features of these emergent nursing care models. This article contributes to filling this
gap by presenting a theoretically and empirically grounded taxonomy of nursing care organization models in the
context of acute care units in Quebec and comparing their distinctive features.