AmericanNurseToday.com November 2017 American Nurse Today 45
• Data and care quality go hand in hand.
NURSES, as the largest group of healthcare profes- sionals, are key to quality and safety and to ensuring the best patient outcomes. To make informed practice decisions, nurses need access to aggregate data about their patients and the impact of their care, and they need to know how to interpret that data. This article explores
the role data plays in quality and safety and the synergistic relationship between data and nursing practice.
What’s the connection between data and quality and safety? In 2002, the Institute of Medicine held the Health Professions Education Summit to discuss poten- tial reforms, with the goal of improving quality and pa- tient safety. The summit, which included participants from throughout the healthcare disciplines, defined and developed core competencies in patient-centered care, interdisciplinary teams, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics that should be included in all health profession education. Nursing led the charge in this effort with the devel-
opment of the Quality and Safety Education for Nurs- es (QSEN) Institute, which has defined the essential knowledge, skills, and attitudes that ensure all new RNs and advanced practice RNs (APRNs) are prepared to participate in healthcare teams to improve quality and patient safety. QSEN has developed core compe- tencies that reflect the outcomes of the 2002 summit: • patient-centered care • teamwork and collaboration • evidence-based practice • quality improvement • safety • informatics. Both the summit and the QSEN included informatics
as a competency needed to ensure quality and safety.
Informatics The informatics competency helps nurses use informa- tion and technology to communicate, manage knowl- edge, mitigate error, and support decision-making at the point of care. Because of the rapid changes in healthcare information and technology, nursing stu- dents must know why information and technology skills are essential for safe patient care, understand how to apply information and technology tools, and appreciate the need for lifelong learning on these top-
ics. (See Informatics re- quirements.)
How do we leverage the electronic health record? The Health Information Technology for Econom- ic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act promotes the adoption and mean- ingful use of health infor- mation technology. (See What is meaningful use?)
The goal of HITECH and the original meaningful use legislation is to share electronic health record (EHR) data with patients and engage them in their care. Many hospitals and health systems with mature EHRs have portals for patients to access and record their own health data. Sharing this data, within the parameters of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, supports the meaningful use of EHRs. Nurses can help encourage public adoption of EHRs by supporting the meaningful use of electroni- cally generated health data.