Advancing practice and research: creating evidence-based summaries on measuring nursing-sensitive patient outcomes.

As pressure to improve the quality and safety of healthcare delivery continues, debates have ensued regarding which measures are sensitive to or affected by individual providers, technology, and healthcare systems (Doran, 2003). Outcomes must be identifi ed uniformly and systematically to provide patients and consumers the information they need to make informed choices about their care. Healthcare professionals are obligated to collect patient outcomes data to identify problems with care, evaluate interventions, and improve the quality of care (Donabedian, 1966). Oncology nurses must document patient outcomes data. In 2003, the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Steering Council recognized the unique challenges of identifying, measuring, and ultimately improving outcomes for patients with cancer. The ONS Oncology Nursing-Sensitive Outcomes (ONSO) Project Team (see Figure 1) began the important work of describing nursing-sensitive outcomes, defi ned as “the results directly attributable to nursing care and the provision of nursing services or achieved in collaboration with other healthcare providers” (ONSO Project Team, 2003). The product of this initial work was a classifi cation scheme for outcomes that are impacted by oncology nurses. Categories included • Symptom experience • Functional status • Safety (preventable adverse events) • Psychological distress • Economic. Advancing Practice and Research: Creating Evidence-Based Summaries on Measuring Nursing-Sensitive Patient Outcomes