Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses

Abstract

The purpose of this book is to provide nurses with the best available research, thereby enabling better decisions that result in improved health care and safety practices and lead to better outcomes. Nurses often are the ones who find errors and prevent pa tient harm. In their focus on patient safety, nurses identify critical issues and research for evidence-based practice. This book is a great resource for practicing nurses, nurse educators, re searchers, leaders, and students. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality strongly promotes that safety and quality of health care is dependent on the availability of the best research possible and the ability to deliver results of research into the hands of practitioners, policy makers, and consumers. This text is a culmination of subject expert knowledge, practice, and research from 89 contributors who represent a broad range of nurses and senior researchers across the nation. The topics covered in this text provide excellent background for any clinician, nurse educator, or nurse leader. The topics include • evidence-based practice, • patient-centered care, • working environment for nurses, • care models, and • patient acuity. The chapters provide an easy-tounderstand guide and include a background section and analysis of the literature based on the topic presented. Practice implications are identified at the end of each chapter and guide efforts for improving quality and patient care. Research implications for each topic outline target areas for improvement and can be used by clinicians to inform and guide practice. There are also questions and issues to develop or expand thesis topics and research papers, which faculty members may find useful. A section on critical opportunities contains current topics, including wrong site surgery, communication hand offs by nurses, medication administration safety, medication reconciliation, and personal safety for nurses. These topics are very well presented with numerous research citations and examples from all areas of nursing— from patient entry to the facility to discharge and home care. The authors use exhibits, tables, guides, templates, models, and representations within each chapter and conclude with a list of references including web sites for further independent review and citation. The volumes are written in a manner that allows for quick access, and they are