Quality and Patient Outcomes – Department of Nursing

The BWH Department of Nursing strives to continuously improve the care and services provided to patients and families through ongoing improvements in standards of care and practice, nursing systems that support clinical practice, systems and service improvement, competency assessment, administrative practices and collaborative or multidepartment and hospital-wide improvement initiatives. Nursing’s quality plan is developed in concert with and integrated into the hospital’s quality plan while maintaining a discipline-specific focus that holds our department accountable for nursing care.

Our primary objective is to continuously improve the delivery, quality, safety, efficiency, costs and outcomes of patient care. This is accomplished through a systematic examination of information provided through a variety of processes that include monitoring, evaluation, and continuous improvement activities. All quality activities are performed in accordance with standards of professional health care practices, regulatory, and licensing agencies while supporting the overall academic medical center mission, strategic plans, and quality programs.

We use a variety of methods and tools incorporating the PDSA cycle in a 6-Step Problem solving method, which serves as the foundation for the improvement approach. The model includes Lean and Six Sigma tools and methods focused on reducing waste and eliminating variation when analyzing processes and redesigning and/or improving them.

Please view our patient safety measures data and our ICU staffing data.

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