Capella 4040 Assessment 4 Informatics and Nursing-Sensitive Quality Indicators NURS-FPX 4040 Managing Health Information and Technology ​​​​​​​Informatics and Nursing-Sensitive Quality Indicators

Hello, I am Rose, a member of the Quality Improvement Council. I am here to tell you about the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) and the significance of quality improvement. We apply the NDNQI’s strategy or outline to follow hospital performance and analyze our nursing activities to hospital statistics. This information supports us in developing Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) guidelines that are being used to enhance our inpatient and outpatient procedures and plans.

Nurses are essential to the pleasure of both healthcare professionals and visitors. Evaluating their impact inside professional divisions is a challenging task. Nursing-Sensitive Indicators are created to solve this issue by monitoring the outcomes of a nurse’s efforts. This presentation is part of educational and outreach activities to increase our facility’s nursing care quality.

NDNQI and the Nursing Quality Indicators

The American Nurses Association founded the NDNQI in 1998, a significant resource for integrating nursing knowledge and statistics to improve patient safety and service quality. It gathers research-based data from all around the country. It allows comparisons to measure nursing care quality’s influence on patient outcomes (Hebb et al., 2023). Healthcare facilities use the NDNQI to identify areas where they can improve the quality of nursing care. The NDNQI data is used to compare other healthcare facilities’ performance and to monitor the development of quality improvement initiatives.

Nursing-sensitive indicators contain structure, process, and outcomes and are crucial in this assessment. The structure concerns nursing staff credentials and education levels. However, the process concerns comparisons to assess nursing care quality’s influence. Patient outcomes are included in the outcome category.

The Selected Indicator and Its Importance

The number of Nursing Hours Per Patient Day (NHPPD) is an essential indicator in healthcare administration and nursing to assess the quality and quantity of nursing care offered in a healthcare facility. This indicator calculates the average number of nursing hours spent on each patient during 24 hours. It is computed by dividing the total number of patients in the facility by the total number of daily nursing hours. NHPPD serves as a patient safety regulator. A sufficient NHPPD and adequate staffing levels buffer against medical errors, patient falls, and other undesirable events. Overworked and understaffed nursing teams are more likely to make mistakes, risking patient safety. 

NHPPD is essential in optimizing healthcare resources and its function in patient care and safety. It enables healthcare administrators to implement nurse staff, optimally avoiding under or overstaffing issues. This results in a more equitable distribution of the workforce, an essential factor in nurse job satisfaction, lower staff turnover, and a more stable workforce overall (Lee et al., 2020).

Another organizational space in which NHPPD plays a role is cost control. While increasing nursing hours per patient may appear contrary in cost, it can result in long-term savings. Adequate Staffing levels minimize the need for costly overtime pay and temporary agency nurses. They also contribute to shorter hospital stays and lower readmission rates, lowering the financial load on healthcare organizations (Wieczorek et al., 2020). NHPPD emerges as a modern healthcare pillar that supports the cause of high-quality patient-centered care within a sustainable, well-managed healthcare system.