title: Hospital nursing benchmarks: the California Nursing Outcomes Coalition project.
abstract: The California Nursing Outcomes Coalition (CalNOC) project is an initiative that has become the largest ongoing nursing quality measurement repository in the nation. Launched in 1996 by California nursing leaders concerned with trends in hospital care, CalNOC has created reliable quality benchmark data to define patient safety thresholds in California. This article describes CalNOC's effort, which aligns with the strategy of the National Quality Forum for measuring and reporting healthcare quality. By tracing the evolution of the CalNOC project and its future potential, we hope to encourage other grassroots efforts to build the database repositories needed for healthcare quality measurement in the 21st century.
authors.affiliation: Kaiser Permanente's North East Bay Service Area, Northern California, USA. diane.brown@kp.org
authors.forename: D S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Donaldson
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Aydin
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Carlson
mesh_terms: D000575:American Nurses' Association; D019985:Benchmarking / Q000458:organization & administration*; D002140:California; D003219:Confidentiality; D003625:Data Collection; D003628:Database Management Systems; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006265:Health Care Coalitions; D006801:Humans; D015141:Los Angeles; D009738:Nursing Service, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D016730:Program Development; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care