Summative Assessment: Connecting Standardized Quality Data to Improved Patient Outcomes
Information and data management are essential for all nurses to have, but especially for nurse informaticists. Data is essential to a hospitals or other health care organization’s capacity to improve patient care. You know how important it is to review a patient’s data so you can communicate any changes, which can be subtle, to providers in a timely manner.
Consider the following situation:
Your nurse manager has told you there is a possibility her proposed budget will not pass, which means there won’t be enough funding for ongoing training in data management skills. However, the administration is willing to hear input from nurses about why continuous training would have a positive impact on patients.
Your manager has asked you to create a 1,050- to 1,400-word proposal explaining the relationship between the quality and integrity of data entered into a database and the resulting effect on the quality of patient care.
Answer the following questions in your proposal:
• What is data quality and data integrity?
• What impact do data quality and integrity have on the ability of health care providers to make informed decisions about patient care?
• How can inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated data lead to medical errors, delays in treatment, or other problems? Provide specific examples of this.
• How can high-quality data be used to improve patient care?
• How can health care organizations improve data quality and integrity?
• What is the importance of training and continuing education on the quality and integrity of data?