Purpose:  This presentation will familiarize participants with how SLEH is building a seamless data retrieval process to capture nursing-sensitive indicators for purposes of improving quality patient care.

Description of how the session will provide relevant and current knowledge:  Capturing data from multiple operational systems into a single data file is not without its problems.  The process involves data integrity checking, data transformations, and creation of custom data fields to facilitate analysis.  The results of phase I of SLEH implementation of a seamless data base as well as progress to date on phase II will be shared. 

Summary of presentation:  This presentation will share the structure, process and outcome indicators that have been selected as variables of interest.  The specifics of each of these indicators and how data is collected and stored will be presented.  Results of Phase I, a study completed last year which used structural equation modeling to identify relationships between environmental contextual variables and unit staffing levels, will be shared.  The second phase of the study, designed to examine the impact of changes in staffing patterns on specific patient   outcomes including pressure ulcers, falls, and IV infiltrations, will also be presented.

Implications for practice:  Having access to a seamless data base that can be queried to answer practice questions is a necessity in today’s health care environment.  For an individual facility to be able to drill down and analyze why one unit has better patient outcomes than another, to assess effectiveness of staffing ratios, and to get a handle on variables that impact staff nurse satisfaction, the nurse administrator has to have data.  The investment in the technology is substantial but the long term benefits are worth it. 

Educational objectives: 

            1.  Become acquainted with data retrieval techniques.

            2.  Discover how databases can be used to answer administrative and quality queries.