title: Capturing the imagination of nurse executives in tracking the quality of nursing care.
abstract: Nurses represent the single largest healthcare profession in the United States. A growing evidence base demonstrates nursing's direct influence on inpatient safety and healthcare outcomes. Support for nursing's essential role in quality and patient safety and mounting interest in publicly reporting performance results have led to efforts to standardized nursing-sensitive performance measures. To this end, in 2004, the National Quality Forum endorsed a set of 15 nursing-sensitive consensus standards intended for use by the public in assessing inpatient nursing care. However, until recently, only anecdotal knowledge existed regarding the implementation of these consensus standards. As a step toward better understanding the interest in and adoption of nursing performance measures, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded a study that concluded in March 2007. In this article, findings from the study are summarized as they apply to nursing leadership and implications for the future role of the nurse executive.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing Education, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20037, USA. hspetk@gwumc.edu
authors.forename: Ellen T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Kurtzman
authors.forename: Bonnie M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Jennings
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D032921:Consensus; D003625:Data Collection; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D005544:Forecasting; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006287:Health Planning Guidelines; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D007857:Leadership; D009718:Nurse Administrators / Q000193:education / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000523:psychology; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology; D015401:Nursing Administration Research; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States