• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

How to navigate the basics of the QI data terrain

Quality Improvement Monitor, March 9, 2007

Vivian Chun, RN, CPHQ, learned in business school how to look at data, understand an Excel spreadsheet, and develop a database.

But she knows full well how difficult it can be for nurses who become quality improvement (QI) directors and are suddenly deluged with data demands-something few nursing schools prepare them for.

"Personally, it was a difficult transition," says Chun, a former nurse and senior analyst in the quality department at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "I can definitely understand the challenge of people who come from nursing and go directly into a QI directors' position and try to figure out how to abstract data,how to analyze data, and how to report the data."

Chun, who is now the manager of healthcare delivery advisory services for First Consulting Group in Long Beach, CA, advises QI directors to find out early on what their hospital's priorities are and what information it's looking for. "You need to understand the purpose of the data and what that information will be used for," she says.

The biggest mistake QI directors make, Chun says, is trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to collecting data. Medical records staff are an excellent resource for data, she says. "These people look at charts all the time, and they look at every chart after the patient is discharged," Chun says. "They also code data, so they probably already have some clinical data and quality data that you're looking for."

Click here http://www.hcpro.com/content/66653.cfm?s=EQIM for more information.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive