title: Quality of care in nurse-managed health centers.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purposes of this article are to: (a) describe the first, national, collection of quality measures for nurse-managed health centers (NMHCs); (b) present the quality findings; (c) compare findings with national ambulatory care benchmarks; and (d) discuss the feasibility of national quality data collection, including NMHCs' experiences with data submission and the utilization of findings.
  
  
  METHODS
  Quality outcomes appropriate for aggregated assessment of NMHC quality were proposed by a committee of the National Institute for Nursing Centers. Quality measures related to these outcomes were developed for breast cancer screening, cervical cancer screening, diabetes care, hypertension management, and smoking cessation based on protocols of the Health care Effectiveness Data and Information Set. Nine NMHCs were recruited to participate in retrospective data collection, manually from record audits or electronically from the submission of data files.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, quality measure findings compared favorably with national benchmarks, with particularly high quality demonstrated for chronic disease care management.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Good to very good quality of care was documented across NMHCs, and NMHCs compared favorably with national benchmarks. Data were useful to NMHCs in identifying quality strengths and areas for improvement. National data collection proved to be feasible.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. vhbarkas@umich.edu
authors.forename: Violet H
authors.initials: VH
authors.lastname: Barkauskas
authors.forename: Joanne M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Pohl
authors.forename: Clare
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tanner
authors.forename: Tiffiani J M
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Onifade
authors.forename: Bonnie
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pilon
mesh_terms: D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D019985:Benchmarking / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003625:Data Collection; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D008824:Michigan; D009718:Nurse Administrators / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009745:Nursing, Supervisory / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013714:Tennessee