Allocating nurses between direct patient care and quality improvement efforts can result in growing tensions and trade-offs among hospital staffs, according to a study conducted by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC, Washington, D.C.).
The HSC study found that hospitals with supportive leadership, a philosophy of quality as everyone’s responsibility, individual accountability, physician and nurse champions, and effective feedback offer “greater promise” for successfully involving nurses in quality improvement activities.
Hospital leaders in Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Seattle were interviewed for the study, which was commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to examine the role of nurses in hospital quality improvement activities. For more information on the study, visit: http://www.hschange.org/CONTENT/972/.
