Justify how a nursing-sensitive quality indicator establishes evidence-based practice guidelines for nurses to follow when using patient care technologies to enhance patient safety, satisfaction, and outcomes.

Patient safety practices involve reducing or preventing harm caused by patients. Most of the patient falls are preventable. The Joint Commission establishes standards to ensure patient safety in health settings in the country. The National Patient Safety Goals mainly focus on promoting surgical safety, preventing hospital-acquired infections, medication errors, and preventing harms such as falls (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2019). Although non-punitive, all injuries resulting from falls are considered severe and have to be reported to the Joint Commission. Over the years, intensive research has been conducted on quality improvement efforts resulting from fall prevention strategies. Data published by the AHRQ's National Scorecard showed that fall rates in US hospitals declined by 15% between 2010 and 2015. Fall prevention programs start with an assessment of the patient's risk of falling. The nursing-sensitive quality indicator (patient falls) can be used to define key elements of patient safety practices.

Quality indicators can be used to signal the increase or decrease of patient falls in the organization. Organizational leaders can use electronic health records or other health information systems to track records on the rates of patient falls over time within their organization. Health information tools are mainly used to collect and manage health data. Data collected on these systems can then be evaluated to determine the quality of nursing practices in the institution. Improvement of safety practices in health settings can only happen when stakeholders have shared knowledge of the organizational structure, processes, and outcomes; this can be achieved through conducting and reporting on the status of the same to stakeholders. Electronic health records can be useful in sharing and disseminating information to relevant stakeholders. Some systems have features that allow patients to log in and order prescriptions online. Patients can also log in and participate in a survey conducted at the system level to assess the safety culture in your setting from staff and patient’s perspective. The AHRQ developed a toolkit for organizations to examine how current nursing practices at the hospital reduce patient falls in the organizations (AHRQ, 2019). The surveys will collect data on the nursing-sensitive quality indicators. The results from the survey will be used to identify areas of improvement within their organizations. Organizational leaders can implement evidence-based guidelines on preventing patient falls based on outcomes from the quality indicators.

         To sum up, nursing-sensitive quality indicators are used to measure organizational structure, process, and outcomes. The American Nursing Association constantly creates and expands quality indicators for each of these nursing elements. Each nursing element has its own set of quality indicators. Patient falls, and fall-related injuries are outcome indicators. These indicators can be used to inform on patient safety issues in a healthcare setting and nursing practices. To measure and monitor nursing practices, data on the quality indicators can be collected through health information systems. For example, to monitor patient safety practices at a hospital, data on the number of falls at a given period is collected and analyzed. Quality improvement interventions can then be initiated based on the outcomes of the collected data.

References

1. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality – AHRQ (2019, September 7). Falls. Retrieved from https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primer/falls.
2. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality – AHRQ (2013). 5. How do you measure fall rates and fall prevention practices? Retrieved from https://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/systems/hospital/fallpxtoolkit/fallpxtk5.html.