Nursing quality indicators: The next step in enhancing quality in emergency care

摘要

Quality is integral to all aspects of healthcare across the world, from the way you greet a patient over the telephone to the most complex critical care. The emphasis on quality, cost-effectiveness and safer care has never been more predominant in NHS literature (CQUIN, 2012; QJPP, 2012). Describing what quality care is and once described, then measuring it is a complex undertaking. This paper sets out to do just that by defining a set of measurable nursing quality indicators (Ql's) for emergency departments (EDs). The following 10 indicators aim to capture the essence of high quality nursing emergency care. They have been developed in the UK by an expert group of ED senior nurses and have been refined and tested by a large group of registered nurses in ED. They do not claim to cover all aspects of quality but aim to set a standard against which care received by the majority of patients can be measured.