title: Achieving excellence: the nurse manager's challenge.
abstract: We must develop the idea that excellence is constant reshaping and self discovery. Gardner (1961) points out that, "... free men must set their own difficult goals and be their own hard task masters" (p. 160). We must move to self-supervising models of excellence. We must do this for the nursing profession and we must each do this for the people on our units and for ourselves. We must set a standard that strives for the very highest achievement in every part of our life. As Captain Kirk described, "I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before but as far as it was possible for man to go" (Gardner, 1961, p. 140). Developing a patient care unit of excellence means that we do not just try to compete with another unit and do better. Excellence means that we chart new ground and become a pacesetter in developing new models that create exceptional levels of quality at a value and cost that people are willing to pay.
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Kerfoot
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D006801:Humans; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000592:standards*; D009745:Nursing, Supervisory / Q000379:methods*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*