Zeitschrift für Gemeinde- und öffentliche Gesundheitspflege

Abstrakt

Awareness to Implementation on Select Quality and Patient Safety Indicators Among Nursing Staff

Ali Yawar Alam and Mohammad Khalid Alabdulaali

Objective: This study aimed to determine the awareness level of the nursing staff for policies and procedures related to quality of care, patient safety and general safety and assess the congruence of knowledge with implementation.

Methods: Key informant interviews were conducted on 85 Nurses (Front line nurses) in a tertiary health care facility in April 2012 and implementation statistics on select quality and patient safety indicators were obtained from clinical audit programme (CAP) for the same month.

Results: The awareness level of the nurses on quality, patient safety and general safety was found to be good. The compliance on quality and patient safety policies was lower than the knowledge level. A conceptual framework has been devised addressing the knowledge-implementation gap.

Conclusion: The awareness level of the nurses on quality, patient safety and general safety was found to be good. The compliance on quality and patient safety indicators was lower than the knowledge level. The challenge of transforming knowledge to patient care practices needs to take account of work environment determinants (such as; strong general and departmental orientation of nurses, patient/nurse ratio, clinicians involving nurses in clinical decision making process and tracking outcomes of care, mutual trust among team members, teams of physicians and nurses learning together by doing rather than traditional teaching, effective supervision of nurses, and presence of enabling champions in the unit).