Nursing Quality Indicators

v. 1. Research findings -- v. 2. Concepts and methodology -- v. 3. Implementation issues -- v. 4. Programs, tools and products.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

Second in a series of publications from the Institute of Medicine's Quality of Health Care in America project Today's health care providers have more research findings and more technology available to them than ever before. Yet recent reports have raised serious doubts about the quality of health care in America. Crossing the Quality Chasm makes an urgent call for fundamental change to close the quality gap. This book recommends a sweeping redesign of the American health care system and provides overarching principles for specific direction for policymakers, health care leaders, clinicians, regulators, purchasers, and others. In this comprehensive volume the committee offers: A set of performance expectations for the 21st century health care system. A set of 10 new rules to guide patient-clinician relationships. A suggested organizing framework to better align the incentives inherent in payment and accountability with improvements in quality. Key steps to promote evidence-based practice and strengthen clinical information systems. Analyzing health care organizations as complex systems, Crossing the Quality Chasm also documents the causes of the quality gap, identifies current practices that impede quality care, and explores how systems approaches can be used to implement change.

Edited by the same expert team who created the initial 2007 volume (Transforming Nursing Data into Quality Care: Profiles of Quality Improvement in U.S. Healthcare Facilities), this new book examines the experience of hospitals participating in the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQIr) in achieving sustained improvement in quality of care, this time with an emphasis on achieving improvement in the nursing work environment. Nursing staff from thirteen well-performing facilities profile their own improvement processes. Emphasis is on the wide-ranging potential in the job satisfaction indicators that comprise the NDNQIr RN Satisfaction Survey. The book also considers the broader context of the NDNQINDNQIr program through the editors' introductory essay on key NDNQINDNQIr concepts and an afterword by a health care economist, who examines aspects of the costs and effects of quality improvement. This book can stand alone or be combined with the 2007 volume as an excellent reference guide for executives of nursing and other healthcare staff, researchers, NDNQINDNQIr site coordinators, quality improvement professionals, staff nurses, and any healthcare professional concerned with quality issues. It will prove invaluable to better understand the ongoing contributions of nursing-sensitive indicators to contemporary health care.

As more people live longer, the need for quality long-term care for the elderly will increase dramatically. This volume examines the current system of nursing home regulations, and proposes an overhaul to better provide for those confined to such facilities. It determines the need for regulations, and concludes that the present regulatory system is inadequate, stating that what is needed is not more regulation, but better regulation. This long-anticipated study provides a wealth of useful background information, in-depth study, and discussion for nursing home administrators, students, and teachers in the health care field; professionals involved in caring for the elderly; and geriatric specialists.

Providing a solid foundation of concepts and principles, this book maintains the fundamental focus of rehabilitation nursing: holistic care of the rehabilitation client to achieve maximum potential outcomes in functional and lifestyle independence.