Quality of Care

As the primary providers of round-the-clock bedside care, nurses are well positioned to report on hospital quality of care. Researchers have not examined how nurses’ reports of quality correspond with standard process or outcomes measures of quality. We assess the validity of evaluating hospital quality by aggregating hospital nurses’ responses to a single item that asks them to report on quality of care.

Background: Growing scrutiny of readmissions has placed hospitals at the center of readmission prevention. Little is known, however, about hospital nursing - a critical organizational component of hospital service system - in relation to readmissions.

Objectives: To determine the relationships between hospital nursing factors - nurse work environment, nurse staffing, and nurse education - and 30-day readmissions among Medicare patients undergoing general, orthopedic, and vascular surgery.

OBJECTIVE: This research study examines work-related burnout, job satisfaction, nurse-assessed quality of care, and intent to leave in travel nurses, a population that has not been studied previously.

BACKGROUND: Travel nurses are frequently used to supplement nursing staff in acute care hospitals, especially in times of shortage--understanding their satisfaction with the job may further illuminate the problem of nurse job dissatisfaction in general.

The Affordable Care Act’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) penalizes hospitals based on excess readmission rates among Medicare beneficiaries. The aim of the program is to reduce readmissions while aligning hospitals’ financial incentives with payers’ and patients’ quality goals. Many evidence-based interventions that reduce readmissions, such as discharge preparation, care coordination, and patient education, are grounded in the fundamentals of basic nursing care.

As the primary providers of round-the-clock bedside care, nurses are well positioned to report on hospital quality of care. Researchers have not examined how nurses' reports of quality correspond with standard process or outcomes measures of quality.

Although acute inpatient psychiatric care has changed dramatically over the past 2 decades, little is known about how these changes have affected the quality of care, psychiatric nurse staffing, or patient outcomes. The purpose of this report is to explore the quality of care, quality of the practice environment, and adverse events as assessed by psychiatric nurses in the general hospital setting.

The primary aims of this study were to determine the reliability and validity of 2 measures: the Nursing Assistant Self-efficacy for Restorative Care Scale and the Nursing Assistant Outcome Expectations for Restorative Care Scale. This study included 386 nursing assistants from 8 nursing homes. The findings provide some support for the reliability and validity of these measures on the basis of Rasch analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and convergent validity.

BACKGROUND: Most prior research on the outcomes of restorative care programs has been focused on resident outcomes including such things as functional performance, behavior, and quality of life. Treatment fidelity issues and compliance with the programs were not addressed in these studies. Without such an evaluation, it is impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of restorative care activities. PURPOSE: To test the reliability and validity of the Restorative Care Behavior Checklist (RCBC), which is an observed measure of restorative care activities performed by nursing assistants (NAs).