Early Career RNs' Perceptions of Quality Care in the Hospital Setting

Measures and indicators of quality care—such as the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set, and those developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality—inform consumers, practitioners and policy-makers about the quality of patient care. Other measures, such as those developed by the National Quality Forum, define quality by using nurse-sensitive patient outcomes. But even these measures do not capture some important aspects of quality nursing care in hospitals.

In order to inform more nursing-specific indicators of quality, researchers asked early-career (less than four years experience) registered nurses (RNs) what they thought constituted high-quality nursing. Three themes emerged as integral to quality nursing care:

  1. RN presence—being present with the patient at the bedside; having the time and flexibility to spend time with patients; and having a workload that facilitates both.
  2. Developing relationships—trust between RNs and their patients; focusing on the patient; treating the patient as if he or she were family; and being an advocate for the patient.
  3. Facilitating the flow of knowledge and information—informed by an evidence base; RN education and competence; and teamwork and communication.

Quality indicators need to include process measures in order to reflect the complexity of bedside nursing care.

The RN Work Project

  1. 1 Newly Licensed RNs' Characteristics, Work Attitudes, and Intentions to Work
  2. 2 Addressing the Complexities of Survey Research
  3. 3 A Comparison of Second-Degree Baccalaureate and Traditional-Baccalaureate New Graduate RNs
  4. 4 Understanding New Registered Nurses' Intent to Stay at Their Jobs
  5. 5 The Nursing Career Process from Application Through the First 2 Years of Employment
  6. 6 What Newly Licensed Registered Nurses Have to Say about Their First Experiences
  7. 7 Moving on, Up, or Out
  8. 8 Generational Differences Among Newly Licensed Registered Nurses
  9. 9 New Nurses¿ Views of Quality Improvement Education
  10. 10 Newly Licensed RNs Describe What They Like Best about Being a Nurse
  11. 11 Early Career RNs' Perceptions of Quality Care in the Hospital Setting
  12. 12 Commuting to Work
  13. 13 State Mandatory Overtime Regulations and Newly Licensed Nurses' Mandatory and Voluntary Overtime and Total Work Hours
  14. 14 Work Environment Factors Other Than Staffing Associated with Nurses' Ratings of Patient Care Quality
  15. 15 The Relative Geographic Immobility of New Registered Nurses Calls for New Strategies to Augment that Workforce
  16. 16 Predictors of Actual Turnover in a National Sample of Newly Licensed Registered Nurses Employed in Hospitals
  17. 17 Charting the Course for Nurses' Achievement of Higher Education Levels

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