If the nurse had an adequate understanding of continuous quality improvement, which of the following statements would the nurse? (Select all that apply.)

Question

a. "The accountability for quality is vested in quality circles that function along service lines to improve patient care.".
b. "After quality standards are achieved, the nurse strives to maintain that standard of care.".
c. "Quality standards must incorporate the expectations of patients and their fami-lies.".
d. "Systems within the hospital must be re-viewed to determine how care can be en-hanced.".
e. "Reducing costs to provide for substantial pay increases for nursing staff is an ex-ample of continuous quality improve-ment.".
f. "Computerized electronic documentation systems that provide continuous assess-ment of patient charges are an example of continuous quality improvement.".

Answer 1

A, B, D
Quality improvement (QI) refers to the process or activities that are used to measure, monitor, evaluate, and control services so that nurses can provide some measure of confidence to health care consumers. It includes reports that must be generated to track progress. This approach em-phasizes continually looking for opportunities to improve. QI looks not only at what the nurse does in the pursuit of quality but also at how the systems of the units in the hospital can be im-proved to provide better care at lower cost. Reducing costs by providing for pay increases for nursing staff and computerized documentation systems are not examples of QI. Although quality improvement affects patients, their expectations and their family members' expectations are not necessarily incorporated into quality circles and the work that they do. Nurses must monitor quality care compliance; otherwise, people tend to go back to their old ways of doing things. The QI department is typically the department that receives data, analyzes trends, and recommends actions to facilitate improvement in the organization. However, there should also be a continuous quality improvement (CQI) council as a primary decision-making nursing team, as well as quality circles (QCs) that function along service lines, collaborating to improve care for a group of patient types.