Assignment: Nursing Sensitive Quality Indicators Presentation

Hi everyone. I am (Client’s name), and I am glad to present to you the importance of nursing-sensitive quality indicators. According to Waugh & Bergquist-Beringer (2019), the quality measurement program regarded as the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) aims to compile hospital unit-level performance data to improve nursing care evaluation. The American Nurse Association initiated the program in 1998 to facilitate the assessment of the impact that nursing has on healthcare. The primary way that NDNQI operates is by incorporating structure, process, and outcome indicators that enable the provision of quality care and nursing care evaluation. Therefore, the presentation will cover different areas, including an explanation of nursing-sensitive quality indicators, the selection of a quality indicator, its importance, and quality data indicator distribution and collection.

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Nursing-Sensitive Quality Indicators (NSQIs)

NSQIs refer to specific patient outcomes whose primary influence is nursing care. As Waugh & Bergquist-Beringer (2019) accentuate, the measures are essential in nursing practice since they help monitor patient safety and quality of care in healthcare facilities across the United States. The NSQIs are categorized into outcome, process, and structural measures. In that regard, outcome measures project the healthcare services’ impacts on the patient’s health, like the rate of healthcare-acquired infection in a hospital. In most cases, the outcome measures are the gold standard in quality measurement. The process measures represent the efforts providers put in place to improve or maintain health for the different patient populations. The process measures are essential since they reflect the highly valued clinical practice recommendations (Waugh & Bergquist-Beringer, 2019). Some of the process measures include the number of patients with diabetes whose blood sugar levels have been tested and controlled. The structural measures provide consumers with the need for the health care systems and providers to offer high-quality care. For instance, some structural measures may involve providing data on the nurse-to-patient ratio or the number of board-certified physicians in a hospital.

Selection of a Quality Indicator

For this assessment, I would like to evaluate the outcome indicators. The main aim of an outcome measure is that it helps in assessing a program’s changes achievement, which is classified as either long, short-term, or intermediate. For instance, there is a high prevalence of pressure ulcers in the United States, which serves as an outcome indicator. In research conducted by (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, n.d.), it is evident that the United States experiences over 2.5 million people yearly who develop pressure ulcers. Such skin lesions inflict pain and other risks that expose patients to severe infections. Hence, hospitals that record high-pressure ulcer rates may use such outcome measures to conclude that the healthcare facility has low nursing quality care, thus prompting them to formulate effective quality improvement to enhance the situation.

Importance of Monitoring the Quality Indicator

The main reason why it is essential for healthcare organizations and providers to monitor data on pressure ulcers concerns the adverse effects they bring along to the patients. According to Kottner et al. (2018), healthcare organizations must realize that improving overall patient care will always be problematic if they do not emphasize the need to measure healthcare outcomes. As a result, healthcare organizations may fail to meet patients’ expectations which may also affect these healthcare organizations’ sustainability and competitiveness. Therefore, it is crucial for healthcare organizations to engage in regular outcome measurement to be in a position to detect the pressure ulcer issue early enough to prevent it from extending to adverse and uncontrollable levels. Hence, as Lechner et al. (2020) postulate, monitoring pressure ulcers exposes healthcare providers to providing quality care since they can easily prevent other associated infections from enhancing overall patient health outcomes.

Pressure ulcers are preventable and unwanted harm in hospitals since they lead to slow recovery, cause pain, and expose patients to various infections, including disfiguring patients with reduced mobility and increased healthcare costs. The other reason healthcare systems and providers need to formulate effective control systems for pressure ulcers is that it interferes with the patient’s daily activities, leading to increased mortality and hospitalization rates (Kottner et al., 2018). As such, it will always be essential for hospitals to engage in evidence-based interventions that will enhance patients with pressure ulcer quality of care and their overall healthcare outcomes.

In that case, the most effective way to reduce the high prevalence of pressure ulcers is by educating nurses and other interprofessional healthcare providers on preventing them. In this sense, healthcare professionals know how pressure ulcers affect the patient population and acknowledge the most effective ways to avoid them; there is a higher probability of reducing pressure ulcer occurrence (Saleh et al., 2019). Healthcare organizations should focus on enrolling new nurses in training and workshops to increase their knowledge of pressure ulcers and gain skills like patients’ balanced diet, skin care, patient repositioning, and other interventions like pneumatic mattresses used as pressure-relieve support surfaces. Also, these nurses will learn the effect of poorly-fitted medical tools on the patient’s tissues, which is one of the many causes of pressure ulcer development.

Quality Data Indicator Distribution and Collection

When assessing patients with pressure ulcers, there is a need to carry out a full clinical assessment that involves the ulcer history, size, stage, anatomic location, tunneling, sinus tracts, necrotic tissue, and drainage, among other essential details for the assessment. Hence, to ensure that pressure ulcer is detected early, the healthcare management needs to set days for each patient to be assessed to collect data about pressure ulcer prevalence. According to Kottner et al. (2018)., the pressure ulcer prevalence data is vital since healthcare organizations can quickly develop quarterly reports that will help them recognize the efforts needed to curb the condition. Hence, from Saleh et al. (2019) perspective, the primary way healthcare organizations can formulate the patients’ percentage for pressure ulcers is by dividing the number of patients with pressure ulcers by the number of overall examined patients.

The obtained results are then integrated into a statistical comparison to assess if the healthcare organization is improving or if there is a need to incorporate more interventions. Such data is also adequate since it helps the healthcare organization rank different departments and their efforts in curbing pressure ulcers. Also, the data can be used to compare and evaluate healthcare nursing performance in preventing high rates of pressure ulcers with their competitors. As such, the findings obtained from the research can then be distributed to other departments and other interprofessional teams, which can be either through texts or emails (Saleh et al., 2019). Such data also needs to be documented so that future improvements can access it easily to help the decision-makers integrate informed decisions towards pressure ulcer control. Consequently, nursing informatics also plays an essential role in such a situation. They should provide accurate health information and education to nurses and other interdisciplinary teams to ensure that their decisions will achieve the desired and projected patient health outcomes.

Conclusion

The main lesson from the presentation is that nursing care quality enhances patient satisfaction and safety. Integrating the NDNQI program allows healthcare organizations to quickly identify the most effective ways to improve care for their target patient population. Hence, through evaluating pressure ulcers as one of the most prevalent healthcare outcomes in the United States, it is essential for healthcare organizations to keep track of the occurrence and formulate effective interventions. However, the most important thing to consider is the need to educate nurses and other healthcare professionals, especially the new ones, to increase their knowledge and skills to handle pressure ulcers and improve patient healthcare experiences and outcomes.

References

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (n.d.). Preventing Pressure Ulcers in Hospitals. Www.ahrq.gov. https://www.ahrq.gov/patient-safety/settings/hospital/resource/pressureulcer/tool/index.html#:~:text=A%20Toolkit%20for%20Improving%20Quality

Kottner, J., Black, J., Call, E., Gefen, A., & Santamaria, N. (2018). Microclimate: A critical review in the context of pressure ulcer prevention. Clinical Biomechanics, 59, 62–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinbiomech.2018.09.010

Lechner, A., Kottner, J., Coleman, S., Muir, D., Beeckman, D., Chaboyer, W., Cuddigan, J., Moore, Z., Rutherford, C., Schmitt, J., Nixon, J., & Balzer, K. (2020). Outcomes for Pressure Ulcer Trials (OUTPUTs) project: Review and classification of outcomes reported in pressure ulcer prevention research. British Journal of Dermatology, 184(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/bjd.19304

Saleh, M. Y. N., Papanikolaou, P., Nassar, O. S., Shahin, A., & Anthony, D. (2019). Nurses’ knowledge and practice of pressure ulcer prevention and treatment: An observational study. Journal of Tissue Viability, 28(4), 210–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtv.2019.10.005

Waugh, S. M., & Bergquist-Beringer, S. (2019). Methods and Processes Used to Collect Pressure Injury Risk and Prevention Measures in the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators® (NDNQI®). Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 35(2), 1. https://doi.org/10.1097/ncq.0000000000000428