Nursing Care Delivery Redesign: Using the Right Data to Make the Right Decisions.

Abstract

In British Columbia, the Nursing Policy Secretariat of the Ministry of Health recently issued a series of priority nursing recommendations, including team-based care delivery models. This paper will describe the data collection and analysis phase of a quality improvement initiative focused on care delivery redesign within three healthcare organizations. The focus of the care delivery redesign was a transition from total nursing care to team-based nursing care. Our leadership-academic partnership used the Canadian Nurses Association's "Staff Mix Decision-Making Framework for Quality Nursing Care" to guide data collection and analysis on patient, nurse and organizational factors. Data were collected by nurse-led project teams using a patient needs assessment tool, surveys of nurses' scope of practice and teamwork and an environmental profile tool with nurse demographics and unit/facility-level characteristics. Findings from one organization's pediatric medicine and surgery units are presented in this paper. Quality improvement data provide multiple opportunities for proactive human resource planning and professional development. Resources and examples are provided to guide others' redesign efforts.