Nursing Quality Improvement Activities
Providing quality nursing care is the foundation of professional ethics for nurses. Nurses have a moral obligation to not only provide quality care, but to also to constantly strive for excellence in the quality of the care they furnish.
Non-medical prescribing is increasingly being seen as a cost-effective option, quality improvement option by both the U.S. government and professional nursing societies. The employment of potentially dangerous preparations in an array of clinical settings is not without risks, however.
There are other considerations for quality improvement in nursing -- including:
Nursing considerations for prescribed drugs.
Review of practice and practice outcomes.
New nursing standards, and guidelines.
Clinical audits.
Quality improvement is a formal approach to the analysis of performance and systematic efforts to improve it. There are numerous models used.
Main Body
Providing quality nursing care is the foundation of professional ethics for nurses. Nurses have a moral obligation to not only provide quality care, but to also to constantly strive for excellence in the quality of the care they furnish.
Non-medical prescribing is increasingly being seen as a cost-effective option, quality improvement option by both the U.S. government and professional nursing societies. The employment of potentially dangerous preparations in an array of clinical settings is not without risks, however.
There are other considerations for quality improvement in nursing -- including:
Nursing considerations for prescribed...
There are numerous models used.
In my opinion, non-medical prescribing is the biggest quality improvement issue facing the nursing profession. But I will address other, relevant topics first, before delving deeply into my hypothesis.
Nursing Considerations for Prescribed Drugs
For example, before administering Colace, an anti-constipation drug, a nurse should make a full an assessment of the patient to determine a number of possible causes of constipation.
Note: WD.com suggests inquiry into: diet and lifestyle; duration of constipation and whether it is acute or chronic; obtaining a list of all medications taken, and whether they were prescribed, over-the-counter or recreational; as well as associated symptoms such as bleeding from the rectum, abdominal pain, vomiting.
Nearly every drug that can prescribed by a physician has nursing considerations. Scanning the Physicians Desk Reference (PDR), or another nursing reference for drug indications, is a good quality practice to adopt.
Review of practice and practice outcomes
The evidence from the scientific literature demonstrates that nursing record systems desingned to fix a specific problem, like reducing lost nursing notes, reducing the time required for data entry, or the volume of paper files, may be quite successful at helping to review practice and improve nursing outcomes.
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