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New Nursing Quality Standards Released

The National Quality Forum (NQF), a nonprofit organization that sets consensus health care quality standards, recently released "National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Nursing-Sensitive Performance Measures. The purpose of the standards is to provide a method for evaluating nursing care and how nursing teams contribute to the overall health care group.

Included among the NQF's 15 quality measures are:

  • Failure to rescue;
  • Prevalence of pressure ulcers;
  • Falls with injury;
  • Urinary catheter-associated UTIs in ICU patients;
  • Smoking cessation counseling for patients with acute myocardial infarction, heart failure and pneumonia; and
  • Nursing care hours per patient per day.

NQF has received national recognition for its work on health care quality issues. As with their other consensus standards — including standards for hospital care and for nursing home care — the Nursing-Sensitive Performance Measures were developed by a broad coalition of groups representing all aspects of the health care industry.

The AFL-CIO holds a seat on the NQF Board of Directors. NQF strives to improve health care quality through performance measurement and public reporting; standardization of health care performance measures; and promotion of consumer understanding and use of health care quality information. For more information, visit the National Quality Forum web site.

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