An Effective Strategy to Teach Nurses and Managers how to Use Benchmarked Data to Improve Care Processes and Outcomes

Purpose:
Gaps in knowing how to read, interpret and use benchmarked data were identified in two Midwestern healthcare organizations. An innovative approach was developed for teaching nursing staff and leadership key elements of NDNQI reports in way that made the data understandable and more useful.

Significance:
Cost-containment with increased emphases on optimizing patient outcomes and reimbursement is the reality of today's acute care climate. Nursing leadership and staff must be able to use benchmarked data for internal process improvement efforts as they relate to nurse sensitive outcome measurement.

Strategy and Implementation:
It is imperative for nurses and managers to know how to read and make sense of the volumes of data they are exposed to on a daily basis. In an effort to make the reading, interpretation, and use of NDNQI benchmarked data and quarterly reports less daunting for nursing leadership and staff, an innovative teaching approach was incorporated into the development and delivery of a continuing educational offering. A clinical nurse researcher developed and taught a one hour class on using benchmarked data that was made available to nursing staff and leadership across all unit types. Tailoring content to specific nursing units made the data more meaningful to attendees, and resulted in more effective translation of comparative data into measurable action plans with targeted improvement goals. Learners were exposed to strategies that would allow them to maximize use of the information contained in reports for quality improvement activities and ongoing measurement of target goal attainment.

Evaluation:
Evaluations consistently contained positive remarks about the user-friendliness of course content and learner confidence in ability to use data. Pilot projects reflect application of principles by managers and staff in creating, implementing and evaluating improvement plans using benchmarked data.

Implications for Practice:
Familiarizing nursing staff and management with NDNQI quarterly reports is critical to achieving goals of optimizing patient care processes and outcomes. Tailoring report content to meet unit-specific learning needs individualizes the teaching approach resulting in an engaged learning process.