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The Contribution of Nurses to Better Hospital Quality Management

medical professional wearing health suit with stethoscope

Nearly all facets of hospital quality, including patient care, bedside, and medication management, assistance with surgeries and other major operations, data collection and reporting, and more, are directly handled by nurses.

Additionally, nurses are directly in charge of monitoring and evaluating patients as well as carrying out quick interventions to lower risk or stop medical complications. Nurses also supervise other healthcare professionals like caregivers and other technicians. Even before discharge, an attending nurse assists in educating patients and families about post-hospital care.

Quality Management Barriers

Although every doctor, nurse, and hospital administrator aspires to provide the highest caliber of care, this does not always occur. There are obstacles that keep coming up whether you want quality control management in a hospital, doctor's office, or walk-in clinic.

For instance, if the company lacks an effective policy for reporting errors. Because the reporting process can take a while, some employees decide that certain errors are to be expected and are not important enough to bring to anyone's attention. Another is a lack of confidentiality, which discourages staff from owning up to errors. Organizations settle for punishing the person who made the error rather than identifying the mistake's underlying cause and correcting it. Because of this, employees are even less likely to report their mistakes.

Nurses’ Role in Providing and Managing High-Quality Care

When it comes to enhancing hospital quality generally, nurses are crucial. The opportunity to meaningfully advance healthcare rests with nurses and other healthcare delivery teams.

Nurse Manager

The nurse manager must set up the workplace to make it easier for the staff nurses to take proactive steps to improve patient care. A successful strategy for coordinating quality improvement efforts is to use quality circles, quality councils, or quality improvement forums. 

Managers also assist staff by educating them about unintentional safety-risking behaviors. For instance, a hospital discovered during an audit that a sizable portion of its nurses was unaware that the worksheet they used needed to be cleaned before handling high-risk medications like parenteral. They were able to change their behavior and ensure compliance once they realized that their actions had led to an unsafe environment.

Quality Improvement Management Nurse 

A quality improvement management nurse must perform a number of difficult tasks. They must first continuously evaluate data and trends related to personnel and process performance. They contrast this information with current procedures, gather more data, create a plan, and offer executives of healthcare organizations insightful feedback and suggestions for improvement. This will include asking patients, staff members, and unidentified members of the public for feedback and conducting surveys of them.

Nurse Executives

The most senior administrative position in a nursing organization is that of a nurse executive. They oversee the management of patient care services, direct the nursing team, and make operational choices that advance the objectives of the company. The nurse executive sets the direction and secures the resources required to make sure the organization's efforts to improve quality are successful.

It is crucial to remember that nurses alone cannot raise the standard of care. Nurses must collaborate with other professionals and support staff in order to achieve these improvements. All organizational levels must be committed to total quality. Developing a dynamic mechanism that continuously enhances the procedures and results of healthcare services will lead to achieving high-quality patient care services.

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