NURS-FPX4040 Assessment 4 Informatics and Nursing Sensitive Quality Indicators Example 2 Informatics and Nursing-Sensitive Quality Indicators
NURS-FPX4040 Assessment 4 Informatics and Nursing Sensitive Quality Indicators Example 2
Informatics and Nursing-Sensitive Quality Indicators
Nursing-sensitive quality indicators are the factors that determine the quality of care in an organization, measured through patient outcomes and other factors that are highly influenced by nursing action. According to Afaneh et al. (2021), nursing-sensitive quality indicators fall into staffing and quality measures. Since these measures heavily depend on nursing actions, nurses play a vital role in data collection and reporting, contributing to care quality indicators and organizational outcomes. The purpose of this audio training tutorial is to provide an orientation to one of the nursing-sensitive quality indicators critical to our organization, as we discuss the importance of these indicators. In this training module, we will also cover how data is collected and disseminated across our organization and explore your role as nurses in supporting accurate reporting, which leads to desirable quality results.
National Database of Nursing-Sensitive Quality Indicators
To understand nursing-sensitive quality indicators, it is essential to explore the National Database of Nursing-Sensitive Quality Indicators (NDNQI). The NDNQI is a system developed by the American Nursing Association, aiming to track and report on the quality indicators that are greatly influenced by nursing actions. In other words, it is a standard approach used to evaluate nursing performance in relation to patient outcomes. The database contains over 600 measures related to nursing performance, workforce experience, health, and patient outcomes.
The data collected and contained in the NDQQI database are available and accessible for users to use as a benchmark measure of individual quality indicators in their facility, thereby determining whether the facility is performing well. Nursing-sensitive quality indicators include pressure ulcer prevalence, patient falls with injuries, nursing staff turnover, skill mix, nursing staff working hours per patient day, hospital readmission rates, and registered nurses’ satisfaction survey options.
Patient Falls Nursing-Sensitive Quality Indicator
The selected nursing-sensitive quality indicator we will focus on in this module is patient falls. Patient falls refer to an unintended descent of a patient to the floor, which can potentially cause minor or major injuries. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (n.d.), patient falls are one of the nursing care quality indicators, as falls raise patient safety concerns following minor or severe injuries. In addition, patient falls are often attributed to nurses failing to perform their role effectively, as some patient fall cases may be due to missed nursing care (Hessels et al., 2019).
Patient falls are a crucial nursing-sensitive quality indicator to monitor, as they measure how nursing practice and nurses succeed in ensuring patients feel safe from falls. Ideally, if a care facility has low patient fall rates, the nurses are succeeding in their work by preventing falls and fall-related injuries, and vice versa. In addition, the patient falls quality indicator serves as a foundation for quality improvement in an institution, as it demonstrates how well the current systems enhance patient safety and prevent patient falls, thereby providing an opportunity to compare different systems and promote learning, assessment, and continuous improvement.
Furthermore, research shows a direct relationship between patient falls quality indicator, patient safety, and overall quality of care (Lee et al., 2019). As mentioned earlier, if high patient fall cases are recorded in an institution, it indicates poor patient safety in relation to patient falls and the failure of current systems to provide quality care and prevent patient falls. In addition, patient falls pose a safety concern due to their related effects, including extended hospital stays, chronic pain, and loss of confidence in balance. Therefore, as new nurses, you need to be familiar with the patient falls quality indicator when providing patient care, so you can contribute to proposing and developing interventions that can be used to prevent falls, thereby improving patient safety, care quality, and, in turn, your nursing performance.
Collection and Distribution of Patient Falls Quality Indicator Data
Our organization collects data on patient falls by counting the number of