The Role of Nurses in Hospital Quality Improvement

Center for Studying Health System Change, Research Brief No.3, March 2008
by Debra A. Draper, Laurie E. Felland, Allison Liebhaber, Lori Melichar.

Here are a few interesting quotes for consideration:
"...hospitals confront challenges with regard to nursing involvement, including: scarcity of nursing resources; difficulty engaging nurses at all levels—from bedside to management; growing demands to participate in more, often duplicative, quality improvement activities; the burdensome nature of data collection and reporting; and shortcomings of traditional nursing education in preparing nurses for their evolving role in today’s contemporary hospital setting."

“Within the realm of nursing education, there is not the strength or emphasis on patient safety and understanding change as there should be.” ..Through academic experience, they should have the opportunity to hear about change models and understand some of the basics of the need for good information in making decisions. Data are all around nurses and they are using data for clinical decisions. We need them to understand how to use data to change practice.”
Click on the title to access the full paper.