Measurement of Quality of Nursing Practice in Congenital Cardiac Care

International quality improvement initiatives

“…9,10 The Consortium of Congenital Cardiac Care Measurement of Nursing Practice (C4-MNP) is a nurse-led collaborative committed to developing and evaluating paediatric cardiovascular nurse-sensitive quality indicators to improve and standardise nursing practices. 11,12 Established in 2011, the consortium is a national community of nurse leaders, clinical experts, and nurse scientists committed to rigorous measurement of nursing care to achieve optimal outcomes for children with cardiac disease. 11 The C4-MNP has developed evidenced-based nurse-sensitive measures to use for assessment and improvement in nursing practice across the 31 collaborative paediatric cardiovascular programmes.…”

“…11,12 Established in 2011, the consortium is a national community of nurse leaders, clinical experts, and nurse scientists committed to rigorous measurement of nursing care to achieve optimal outcomes for children with cardiac disease. 11 The C4-MNP has developed evidenced-based nurse-sensitive measures to use for assessment and improvement in nursing practice across the 31 collaborative paediatric cardiovascular programmes. [11][12][13] The Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium (PC 4 ; pc4quality.org) is a quality collaborative dedicated to improving care and outcomes for children and adults with critical congenital cardiovascular disease.…”

Use of a Pediatric Cardiovascular Nursing Consortium for Development and Evaluation of Quality Measures: The C4-MNP Experience

“…The goal of C4-MNP was to establish a national collaborative to identify nursing care actions or measurement in the complex pediatric cardiovascular care environment. The first step or Phase I to accomplishing this broad objective was to learn the current state of pediatric cardiovascular nursing measurement (structure, process, and outcome measurement) in freestanding children's hospitals across the country (Connor, Mott, Green, Larson, & Hickey, 2016).…”

“…The findings revealed variable practices across the country, universal difficulty generating cardiovascular-specific measures, and an inability to effectively evaluate existing measures due to the lack of national benchmarks. Many of the repeated concerns related to the need to ensure that knowledgeable, experienced nurses were available in sufficient numbers to deliver necessary care to patients and families, particularly during periods of program growth (Connor et al, 2016). Nurse leaders verbalized the importance of cardiovascular nursing-focused measurement to help justify optimal staffing models in the current environment of cost reduction and capacity needs.…”

“…Measures encompassing experience, education, and retention were perceived as key for benchmarking. The quality of the work environment, adult-based care, patient/family-centered care, nutrition, pain management, prevention of device related pressure ulcers, and clinical deterioration were additional items highlighted as priority areas for measurement (Connor et al, 2016). Participants were asked about their interest in continuing involvement in the consortium and were encouraged to identify additional nurses from their sites with clinical and/or measurement expertise who would be willing to engage in the consortium's activities.…”