The Role of the Nurse in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety

Abstract

The role of nurses as health professionals var-greatly throughout the world. What is constant for all nurses is that the nursing profession is expected and committed to serve society and provide high quality and safe health care to all recipients of health care. To that end, safety and quality initiatives are underway across the globe to achieve the best health care outcomes possible based on the implementation of scientific evidence and best evidence-based clinical practices available. The purpose of this paper is to explain how safety and quality improvement (QI) initiatives achieve high quality outcomes for patients and how an understanding of the relationships among research, evidence-based practice, and QI and the role of the professional nurse in QI helps nursing meet its commitment to achieve the best possible care and outcomes for patients. The Model for Improvement is provided as a scientific methodology for QI initiatives in health care. Nurses understand the processes of care including what works well and what does not, and they have the clinical experience and scientific knowledge needed to improving processes of care that lead to more effective patient outcomes. (JNNN 2019;8(1):30–36)

Keywords

• quality improvement
• safety
• outcomes
• model for improvement
• nurses’ role