Moving evidence into practice with outcomes-driven acuity data
Intended for healthcare professionals
Evidence and practice    

Moving evidence into practice with outcomes-driven acuity data

Karla Rae Ure Clinical Informatics Analyst, Intermountain Health Care, Salt Lake City, Utah, US
Trevor Hightower Clinical Informatics Analyst, Intermountain Health Care, Salt Lake City, Utah, US
Durenda Juergensen Chief Nursing Officer, health system operations, Cerner, North Kansas City, Missouri, US
Robert Lovett Senior Solution Strategist, health system operations, Cerner, North Kansas City, Missouri, US

Why you should read this article:
  • To recognise that outcomes-driven acuity data provide a valid, objective and reliable measure of patient acuity and workload to support decisions about staffing

  • To acknowledge the critical need for nursing data to be used in the care process provided by nurses

  • To identify the requirement for nursing leaders to align the right number of resources, skills and competencies to individual patient care

This article describes how driving evidence-based practice across the paediatric population using outcomes-driven acuity technology led to the formulation of a combined multihospital and health information technology acuity council. The cross-collaboration among acuity experts resulted in a pilot project being undertaken, implementing evidence-based practice using acuity data and expanding newborn and post-partum acuity outcome sets. The newborn acuity outcome set was expanded from four to seven outcomes, and the post-partum outcome set from nine to 12 outcomes. The revised outcome sets facilitate implementation of evidence-based practice to evaluate the effect of nursing care and practice on patient outcomes.

Nursing Management. doi: 10.7748/nm.2020.e1968

Peer review

This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and has been checked for plagiarism using automated software

Correspondence

karla.ure@imail.org

Conflict of interest

None declared

Ure KR, Hightower T, Juergensen D et al (2020) Moving evidence into practice with outcomes-driven acuity data. Nursing Management. doi: 10.7748/nm.2020.e1968

Published online: 23 November 2020

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