The National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI)
The NDNQI was founded to provide a reference point that could focus on processes, structures, and outcome indicators to assess the care provided by nurses at the setting level. The database has been used successfully to correlate the number of nurses in healthcare institutions with patient outcomes (Best & Neuhauser, 2006; Chu, Wang & Dai, 2009). The database was developed using indicators that were established using feasibility testing. The following list contains the indicators that pertain to my practice setting:
- Patient falls
- Nursing hours per patient per day
- RN education and/or certification
- The nurse vacancy rate
- Voluntary nurse turnover
Two nurse-sensitive indicators and influence of theories and philosophies
The RN education and nursing hours per patient are the two nurse-sensitive indicators in my setting. RN education correlates with the quality of nursing care offered to patients. Also, patient outcomes are determined by the number of hours that nursing care is provided to patients. The two indicators are based on King’s goal attainment theory, which emphasizes that patient goals are set by both the patient and healthcare provider. For a nurse to set and realize goals with a patient, he or she needs to have sufficient time to interact with the patient (Chu et al., 2009). Also, the nurse needs to have good training and/or education because setting and realizing patient goals requires a lengthy process that needs the application of specific knowledge gained through formal training (Chu et al., 2009).
Two scholarly research articles from Walden’s library
The articles by Gerritsen and van Beek (2010) and Davidson, Dunton, and Christopher (2009) best describe how quality indicators influence nursing care outcomes. Gerritsen and van Beek (2010) argue that nursing organizational culture determines the quality of patient outcomes. The study authors designed a study to determine the effect of organizational culture on the quality of care provided to dementia patients. The study was conducted using questionnaires and observations. The authors established that the two parameters correlated positively. The findings are important in my practice setting because the quality of nursing care is greatly determined by the organizational culture of nursing staff.
Davidson and colleagues (2009) conducted a study to assess the importance of nurses focusing on some parameters aimed to reduce medical errors. The authors contend that nurses can improve the quality of nursing care by reducing the number of medical errors experienced by patients in their settings. The article’s findings have implications for my setting. If nurses reduce injection errors, wound dressing, giving medications, and entry of records, among others, the quality of nursing care would be improved in my practice setting.
Quality as defined by a peer-reviewed source
Chaboyer, Johnson, Hardy, Gehrke, and Panuwatwanich (2010) give a definition of quality that resonates with my thinking. The authors assert that quality nursing care is characterized by the minimum number of medical errors and patient falls. This is a good definition because nursing settings that are marked by a high number of medical errors and patient falls usually provide low-quality nursing care. The definition of quality focuses on the safe and reliable environment of nursing settings (Chaboyer et al., 2010).
The metric selected from the NDNQI measure set
The measure set chosen from NDNQI focuses on the reduction of errors, a sufficient number of nursing hours per patient, and RN education. The three indicators could be used to give quality the best definition. Quality nursing can be improved through advanced RN education, reduction of practice setting errors, and increasing nurse-patient contact hours. In conclusion, quality nursing is an important aspect of the healthcare industry because it is used to improve patient outcomes.
References
Best, M., & Neuhauser, D. (2006). Joseph Juran: Overcoming resistance to organisational change. Quality and Safety in Health Care, 15(5), 380–382. Chaboyer, W., Johnson, J., Hardy, L., Gehrke, T., & Panuwatwanich, K. (2010).
Transforming care strategies and nursing-sensitive patient outcomes. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 66(5), 1111–1119.
Davidson, J., Dunton, N., & Christopher, A. (2009). Following the trail: Connecting unit characteristics with never events. Nursing Management, 40(2), 15–19.
Gerritsen, D.L., & van Beek, A. P. A. (2010). The relationship between organizational ulture of nursing staff and quality of care for residents with dementia: Questionnaire surveys and systematic observations in nursing homes. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 47(10), 1272–1282.
Chu, H., Wang, C., & Dai, Y. (2009). A study of a nursing department performance measurement system: Using the balanced scorecard and the analytic hierarchy process. Nursing Economics, 27(6), 401–407.