The National Database of Nursing-Sensitive Quality Indicators (NDNQI) tracks the efficiency of healthcare providers’ operations and develops annual reports accessible nationwide. The source is essential for monitoring how specific nursing activities influence patient outcomes and workload assessment in healthcare organizations (Beck et al., 2019). The results reported by NDNQI outline the strategies to improve patient-centered care, adjust practitioners’ educational programs, and identify and eliminate the problematic aspects. Database indicators are based on evaluating the influence of nurse-performed activities on patient outcomes, making the calculations a reliable source of quality measurement (Beck et al., 2019). Furthermore, NDNQI’s nursing-sensitive information is valuable for staffing requirements and standards for healthcare employers. Although the source’s functioning continuously innovates with new evaluation approaches and implementation, the problem of correct care quality measurement still exists, resulting in difficulties for practitioners’ work.
Infections that occur in healthcare settings are one of the nursing-sensitive quality indicators analyzed by NDNQI. Indeed, using catheters and ventilators common in hospitals requires practitioners to have sufficient skills and knowledge to maintain sanitization. The presence of hospital-acquired diseases indicates poor quality of care and a lack of patient safety (Afaneh et al., 2021). Most of these conditions result from a direct failure of nurses, doctors, and hospitals to adequately service their patients following safety regulations (Afaneh et al., 2021). Thus, it allows the hospital to monitor how well its staff is trained, equipped, and motivated to fulfill their duties. This indicator may indirectly point toward understaffing and overworking personnel in other cases.
Alongside patient outcomes and satisfaction, nursing-sensitive data monitoring is useful for analyzing positive or negative changes in mortality and discharge rates. Healthcare-acquired diseases prolong hospital stays and increase the cost of care for clients regardless of their treatment (Bergquist-Beringer et al., 2018). Consequently, properly utilizing the selected nursing-sensitive quality indicator helps reduce healthcare costs. Infection control effectively ensures patient safety and the quality of care by reducing morbidity and mortality in the healthcare system.
The healthcare-acquired diseases problem became even more severe during the COVID-19 outbreak, enabling nursing staff nationwide to improve their practices and increase the quality of addressing related risks. While respiratory infection spreads in various circumstances, catheter-associated or ventilator-based procedures that may result in severe patient outcomes are prevalent in hospitals. As the pandemic increased awareness of contagious diseases and influenced the quality of healthcare, new nurses must be capable of identifying and addressing risks and performing the procedures strictly in accordance with sanitation standards (Altmiller, 2022). Protection from healthcare-acquired infections indicates the quality of care in a specific organization and displays its ability to deliver professional nursing practice that would positively impact NDNQI.
Collecting and Distributing Quality Indicator Information
According to the research, healthcare organizations have various strategies to collect and measure the data about hospital-acquired diseases in their settings. For instance, an interview revealed that the time spent in a hospital during an infection occurrence is tracked via electronic databases. The approach helps a facility monitor patients’ conditions in real time and identify the highest risk units or potential spreads to prevent them (Afaneh et al., 2021). Research also revealed a different strategy based on interviewing the patient about their experience with catheter-based procedures. This surveying method helped practitioners collect information necessary for addressing the ongoing problems and increasing patient satisfaction rates.
Healthcare organizations have various ways of disseminating data to their staff, patients, and community. Indeed, providing public access to information via educational programs for patients and practitioners is one of the strategies. The approach is effective because it increases general awareness of healthcare-acquired diseases’ existence, symptoms, and preventative measures (Altmiller, 2022). The shared knowledge enables patients to collaborate with nursing staff by sharing the risk-alerting observations the latter could miss due to the high workload.
Nurses participate in maintaining and improving NDNQI by performing data recording and reporting correctly, benefitting from their direct participants in various aspects of patient-centered care. Recording correct nursing interventions is an example of supporting accurate reporting and high-quality care. Accurate recording of information concerning the nursing intervention helps eliminate medical records, ensuring patient safety (Beck et al., 2019). Moreover, practitioners are motivated to continuously track their activities outcomes in their organizations to improve the overall data collection tactics and timely address the challenges that influence the quality of care.
Nursing-sensitive indicators are crucial for patient-centered care, and the healthcare-acquired disease rates are a significant aspect of quality evaluation. Practitioners’ capability to eliminate the risks of infections in their organizations requires sufficient skills and knowledge. Several information-gathering strategies, such as electronic databases and surveys, exist to track the nursing-sensitive indicators and the statistics for healthcare-acquired diseases. NDNQI emphasized the importance of nurses’ participation in collecting measurable data for the reports, making their contribution to healthcare development essential for the industry’s functioning and patient outcomes improvement.
References
Afaneh, T., Abu-Moghli, F., & Ahmad, M. (2021). Nursing-sensitive indicators: A concept analysis. Nursing Management, 28(3), 28–33.
Altmiller, G. (2022). Patient safety and quality of care as measures of nursing competence. In P. K. Vana, B. A. Vottero, & G. Altmiller (Eds.) Quality and safety education for nurses: core competencies for nursing leadership and care management, (3rd ed., pp. 3-40). Springer Publishing.
Beck, S. L., Dunton, N., Berry, P. H., Brant, J. M., Guo, J. W., Potter, C., Spornitz, B., Eaton, J., & Wong, B. (2019). Dissemination and implementation of patient-centered indicators of pain care quality and outcomes. Medical Care, 57(2), 159-166.
Bergquist-Beringer, S., Cramer, E., Potter, C., Stobinski, J. X., & Boyle, D. K. (2018). Exploring the relationship between nursing specialty certification and surgical site infections. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 48(7/8), 400-406.