Quality improvement is now a driving force in health care and is a fundamental aspect of service delivery at all levels. Simply put, quality is everyone’s business. The aim of this essay, through the use of academic literature, is to identify and explain the use of process and outcome data in the delivery of safe, quality nursing care in health institutions. To do this, an examination of what quality and safety is and why it is important will be explained. Following this an explanation of what process and outcome is in relation to quality and safety in healthcare; what process and outcome data is, who collects it and how it assists in achieving better health outcomes. Finally with a focus on clinical handover, an example of process and outcome,
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The scenario is based a metropolitan hospital where it had been identified that a was a significant increase in the number of negative outcomes that were occurring as a result of poor handover between the nurses from the Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) and the nurses on the surgical wards whilst transferring a patient to the ward postoperatively. The previous method of handover, a verbal handover with no set format, whilst seemingly effective, was resulting in a large number of inaccuracies, misinformation, lack of accountability and poor patient outcomes. As a result of these miscommunications and the high risk situations that are associated with clinical handover, it was determined that a new process needed to be created and implemented. To understand why a change needed to occur, it is important to understand what clinical handover is and how, when delivered incorrectly, it can lead to potential harm for patients. It is important to acknowledge that there is little literature related specifically regarding the handover process between the PACU nurse and the surgical nurse (Squire & Annells, 2010), therefore a general overview on handover will be …show more content…
For example in 2007, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) established the National Clinical Handover Initiative Pilot Program aimed at improving clinical handover through the development and trialing of practical, transferable tools for improving handover communication (ACSQHC, 2011). This initiative was linked to the World Health Organization (WHO) who launched the Nine Patient Safety Solutions in May 2007(AHHA, 2011; REF REF). One of these solutions relates to “communication during patient handovers” (REF). The ACSQHC is now leading a national clinical handover initiative and is also leading international collaboration on clinical handover. Recently the ACSQHC released the OSSIE Guide to Clinical Handover Improvement, which provides practical guidelines for clinicians and service providers to implement safe handover practices (CHAboyer
The scenario is based a metropolitan hospital where it had been identified that a was a significant increase in the number of negative outcomes that were occurring as a result of poor handover between the nurses from the Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) and the nurses on the surgical wards whilst transferring a patient to the ward postoperatively. The previous method of handover, a verbal handover with no set format, whilst seemingly effective, was resulting in a large number of inaccuracies, misinformation, lack of accountability and poor patient outcomes. As a result of these miscommunications and the high risk situations that are associated with clinical handover, it was determined that a new process needed to be created and implemented. To understand why a change needed to occur, it is important to understand what clinical handover is and how, when delivered incorrectly, it can lead to potential harm for patients. It is important to acknowledge that there is little literature related specifically regarding the handover process between the PACU nurse and the surgical nurse (Squire & Annells, 2010), therefore a general overview on handover will be …show more content…
For example in 2007, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) established the National Clinical Handover Initiative Pilot Program aimed at improving clinical handover through the development and trialing of practical, transferable tools for improving handover communication (ACSQHC, 2011). This initiative was linked to the World Health Organization (WHO) who launched the Nine Patient Safety Solutions in May 2007(AHHA, 2011; REF REF). One of these solutions relates to “communication during patient handovers” (REF). The ACSQHC is now leading a national clinical handover initiative and is also leading international collaboration on clinical handover. Recently the ACSQHC released the OSSIE Guide to Clinical Handover Improvement, which provides practical guidelines for clinicians and service providers to implement safe handover practices (CHAboyer