The American Nurses Association announced that it opened up its database of nursing and quality measures called National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators ® (NDNQI ®) for research purposes. More details can be found at https://www.nursingquality.org/
The amount of data for clinical improvement purposes is significant:
- 11 years of data submitted quarterly
- 1500 hospitals represented
- 12,000 individual nursing units
- 18 key quality measures
The primary goal of research in this area is to essentially show how nursing practices affect patient outcomes.
From a healthcare business intelligence viewpoint, consider the following business questions:
- Nursing Needs. What are the different nursing needs for medical specialties, surgical units, clinics, long-term care units, etc.?
- Nursing Skill Mixes. o we have the right nursing skill mixes in place? Why or why not?
- Staffing. Are we staffed correctly at the right times of the day? Of the week? Of the month/season/year? Does “correctly staffed” mean financially correct? Clinically correct? Operationally correct? Some mix or balance?
- Training and Experience. Do our nurses have the training and experience needed for our patient mixes? Are they supported with the right blend of equipment, supplies, assistance, etc.?
- Making a Difference? Are our nursing improvement efforts making a difference in terms of patient health outcomes? How do we know?
The NDNQI alone represents a potentially valuable database to mine.
But the point of business intelligence is to combine databases to answer questions that cannot otherwise be answered…profitability, efficiency, effectiveness, quality, satisfaction and value.
I am looking forward to reading more about how the various researchers who subscribe to the database are combining it with other data to answer these types of questions.
Thanks for reading!
Scott