Educational Objectives:This session will provide attendees an opportunity to:

1. Describe a data reporting process that ensures data are distributed directly to leadership and acted upon at the unit level
   
2. Identify who is accountable at each level of nursing leadership for implementing performance improvement action plans derived from the data
   

 Purpose:
Tired of collecting data that are never acted upon? Frustrated by no one taking ownership of the data and unclarity about who is accountable? Aggravated that evidence-based practices derived from data are not implemented?

 Collecting data is a fact of life in healthcare. We collect data for internal performance improvement initiatives, to compare our performance against other hospitals, and to demonstrate regulatory compliance.  Increasingly, consumer advocacy groups such as Leapfrog have placed pressure on healthcare organizations to publicly report quality practices. Reports, like the Institute of Medicine’s 1999 groundbreaking document “To Err is Human,” raised public awareness about patient safety issues.  As a result, more and more data continue to be publicly reported as consumers become progressively savvy and concerned about the state of healthcare in the US.

 It has become apparent that the request for data is not going to diminish.  This brings up the question- What can we do as nursing leaders to improve efficiency with data collection?  This session will demonstrate a data reporting process and accountability structure that will allow managers to spend less time on the cumbersome task of collecting data. More importantly, a performance improvement model will be presented which helps guarantee the data collected are acted upon to drive change and improve patient outcomes.

 Description of session:
Three conceptual models will be provided to expand current knowledge about data and accountability processes: 1) data reporting process flow diagram, 2) standard reports and reporting structure document, and 3) nursing committee organizational structure diagram.  Examples of executive summaries and manager action plan templates will also be shared.

 Summary of presentation:
Conceptual models will be explained in full detail, including the importance of creating written documents to define data flow processes and appropriate roles and responsibilities.  The importance of “closing the data loop” by submitting action plans directly to the Chief Nursing Officer will be shown to demonstrate one practice of ensuring data are acted on and all responsible persons are held accountable.

Implications for practice:

Developing a structure to ensure data accountability requires managers to implement improvement actions plans at the unit level. Once compliance is achieved, managers can then proactively focus their attention on other issues instead of being presented with repetitive data that are not acted upon. Accountability at all levels in nursing leadership facilitates advances in practice and allows management to continually move forward to the next improvement opportunity.  When nursing leadership owns the data, improvement happens.