Spurred a decade ago by the 2004 Institute of Medicine (IOM) call for fundamental changes in the nursing work environment to improve patient safety, these nursing initiatives are often grounded by NQF’s seminal National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Nursing-Sensitive Care.

The American Nurses Association’s National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) includes NQF’s nursing sensitive measures and tracks the impact of key efforts to improve patient safety. Data from NDNQI’s 2,000 participating hospitals show a 15 percent decrease in patient falls and trauma, a 25 percent decrease in patient ulcers and a 53 percent decrease in ventilator-associated pneumonia from 2010-2013. This is important progress following on a 2010 Office of the Inspector General report that found that 13 percent of Medicare patients suffered these and other adverse events while hospitalized. Numerous nursing initiatives have contributed to these impressive results and others in US hospitals. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Transforming Care at the Bedside (TCAB) program is a leading example. Today, in conjunction with the American Organization of Nurse Executives’ Care Innovation and Transformation (CIT) program, nearly 150 hospitals are applying TCAB implement principles and processes resulting in:

• Significant reduction in injury producing falls
• A decrease in nurse turnover from 18 to 3 percent
• An 8 percent increase in nurse time spent at the bedside

“These initiatives and results are a part of the national mosaic of ongoing nursing-led initiatives to improve the healing environment for patients and the nurses who care for them,” said Mary Naylor, PhD, RN, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and NQF Board member. “A key outcome of our collective work is a much greater understanding of the powerful interconnectedness of nursing, the care environment, and patient safety.”