importance of nursing-sensitive quality indicators.

Prepare an 8-10 minute audio training tutorial (video is optional) for new nurses on the importance of nursing-sensitive quality indicators.

As you begin to prepare this assessment you are encouraged to complete the Conabedian Quality Assessment Framework activity. Quality healthcare delivery requires systematic action. Completion of this will help you succeed with the assessment as you consider how the triad of structure (such as the hospital, clinic, provider qualifications/organizational characteristics) and process (such as the delivery/coordination/education/protocols/practice style or standard of care) may be modified to achieve quality outcomes.

The American Nursing Association (ANA) established the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI®) in 1998 to track and report on quality indicators heavily influenced by nursing action.

NDNQI® was established as a standardized approach to evaluating nursing performance in relation to patient outcomes. It provides a database and quality measurement program to track clinical performance and to compare nursing quality measures against other hospital data at the national, regional, and state levels. Nursing-sensitive quality indicators help establish evidence-based practice guidelines in the inpatient and outpatient settings to enhance quality care outcomes and initiate quality improvement educational programs, outreach, and protocol development.

The quality indicators the NDNQI® monitors are organized into three categories: structure, process, and outcome. Theorist Avedis Donabedian first identified these categories. Donabedian’s theory of quality health care focused on the links between quality outcomes and the structures and processes of care (Grove, Gray, Jay, Jay, & Burns, 2015).

Nurses must be knowledgeable about the indicators their workplaces monitor. Some nurses deliver direct patient care that leads to a monitored outcome. Other nurses may be involved in data collection and analysis. In addition, monitoring organizations, including managed care entities, exist to gather data from individual organizations to analyze overall industry quality. All of these roles are important to advance quality and safety outcomes.

The focus of Assessment 4 is on how informatics support monitoring of nursing-sensitive quality indicator data. You will develop an 8–10 minute audio (or video) training module to orient new nurses in a workplace to a single nursing-sensitive quality indicator critical to the organization. Your recording will address how data are collected and disseminated across the organization along with the nurses’ role in supporting accurate reporting and high quality results.

Reference

Grove, S. K., Gray, J. R., Jay, G.W., Jay, H. M., & Burns, N. (2015). Understanding nursing research: Building an evidence-based practice (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.

Demonstration of Proficiency

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

• Competency 1: Describe nurses’ and the interdisciplinary team’s role in informatics with a focus on electronic health information and patient care technology to support decision making.
  • Describe the interdisciplinary team’s role in collecting and reporting quality indicator data to enhance patient safety, patient care outcomes, and organizational performance reports.
• Competency 3: Evaluate the impact of patient care technologies on desired outcomes.
  • Explain how a health care organization uses nursing-sensitive quality indicators to enhance patient safety, patient care outcomes, and organizational performance reports.
• Competency 4: Recommend the use of a technology to enhance quality and safety standards for patients.
  • Justify how a nursing-sensitive quality indicator establishes evidence-based practice guidelines for nurses to follow when using patient care technologies to enhance patient safety, satisfaction, and outcomes.
• Competency 5: Apply professional, scholarly communication to facilitate use of health information and patient care technologies.
  • Deliver a professional and effective audio tutorial on a selected quality indicator that engages new nurses and motivates them to accurately report quality data in a timely fashion.
  • Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for citations and references.