Quality and safety

24Jan 2022 by

Identifying Structure, Process and Outcome Measures

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You are a charge nurse on a post surgical unit.  Retrospective survey data reveal that many patients report high levels of postoperative pain in the first 72 hours after surgery.  You decide to make a list of possible structure, process, and outcome variables that may be impacting the situation.  One of the structure measures you identify is that the narcotic medication carts are located some distance from the patient rooms and that may be contributing to a delay in pain medication administration.  One of the process measures you identify is that licensed staff are inconsistent in terms of how soon they make their initial pain assessments on postoperative patients as well as the tools they use to assess pain levels.  An outcome measure might be the average wait time from the time a patient requests pain medication until it is administered.
For Discussion:  Identify at least three additional structure, process and outcome measures for which you might collect data in an effort to resolve the problem.  Select at least one of these measures and specifically identify how you would collect the data.  Then, describe how you would use your findings to increase the likelihood that future practice on the unit will be evidence-based.