Do You Know Quality Care When You See It?

Abstract

The mission of the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) is to promote excellence in oncology nursing and quality cancer care, but have you ever considered how that mission comes to life in your daily practice? Just as it can be challenging to describe the essence of nursing practice beyond listing specific tasks we perform each day, it may be difficult to routinely identify high-quality care. Our time is often drawn to clearly problematic areas of clinical care. Although this always will be necessary, changes associated with healthcare reform, reimbursement, and accreditation efforts highlight the need to also demonstrate consistently good clinician performance and patient outcomes. Carolyn Clancy, MD, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), defined healthcare quality as “getting the right care to the right patient at the right time—every time” (AHRQ, 2009, “What Is Quality?” para. 1). Do you know what the “right care” is? Can you demonstrate that it consistently is provided in your practice? Although many nurses might reply that they simply recognize good care when they see it, standards of care should be derived from a strong evidence base; high-quality care that achieves those standards can be quantified and compared across organizations through use of nationally tested quality measures. Evidence-based nursing practice (EBP) is not a new concept, and the link between EBP and quality cancer care is a critical one. In “Advocating for Quality Cancer Care: Making Evidence-Based Practice a Reality,” ONS member Kathi Mooney noted the need to transform the nursing role from a traditional “doer” based on local policy or personal preferences to one of a clinical “knowledge worker” with an everchanging evidence base (Mooney, 2001). Without a doubt, keeping abreast of rapidly changing clinical information is a daunting task. ONS strives to provide a wide range of resources to help keep nurses up to date on the latest evidence important to those providing care to patients with cancer. The 2012–2016 ONS Strategic Plan addresses four pillars on which to focus efforts—knowledge, leadership, technology, and, for the first time, quality. Resources from all four areas provide oncology nurses what they need to recognize and illustrate high-quality cancer care (see Figure 1). a ONS Research Agenda and ONS Foundation grant-making EBP—evidence-based practice; ONS—Oncology Nursing Society; PEP—Putting Evidence Into Practice