Measuring the quality of nursing care to Alzheimer's patients.
Facilities that provide care to Alzheimer's disease patients are under unrelenting pressure to document the quality of nursing care they provide to various stakeholders. Unfortunately, little consensus exists nor is guidance given as to how to measure the quality of nursing care. Regulations and standards exist but are seldom translated into systematic outcome measures that assist nurses and facilities to measure, report,and manage the quality of care they provide to residents in general and Alzheimer's patients in particular. This article offers practical ad-vice on conceptualizing quality of nursing care to Alzheimer's patients and the selection of outcome measures to collect, analyze, use, and re-port quality of nursing care data.
Abraham
Ivo L
IL
Matrix45, 620 Frays Ridge Road, Earlysville, VA 22936, USA. iabraham@matrix45.com
MacDonald
Karen M
KM
Nadzam
Deborah M
DM
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000451:nursing*; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005851:Geriatric Nursing / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D015969:National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, U.S., Health and Medicine Division; D015401:Nursing Administration Research / Q000458:organization & administration; D009731:Nursing Audit / Q000458:organization & administration; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research / Q000458:organization & administration; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000592:standards*; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014481:United States