nurse staffing issues - quality of care
Nurses have a key role in the research agenda of the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality, especially in the areas of
primary care, outcomes research, translation of research into
practice, and quality of care. AHRQ recently issued solicitations
for grant proposals for projects, including nursing research, to
examine the impact of health care working conditions on patient
safety and quality of care. The Agency's Center for Primary Care
Research (CPCR) is studying patient safety and how to reduce
high-risk medical errors in the outpatient setting, as well as how
information technology can improve care and patient safety.
AHRQ recently awarded grants to 19 primary care practice-based
research networks, in which nurses play a key role, according to
CPCR Director Helen Burstin, M.D., M.P.H., and her coauthors David
I. Lewin, M.Phil., and Heddy Hubbard, R.N., M.P.H. These networks
will work together to conduct research with over 5,000 primary
care practices and almost 7 million patients across the United
States to examine primary care practice, as well as patient
safety, working conditions, mental health, and health care
disparities. One of the networks based at Yale will focus on nurse
practitioner practices.
Also, AHRQ and the American Academy of Nursing have joined
forces to select a yearly candidate to serve a 12-month term as a
Senior Nurse Scholar at the Agency. In addition to their own
research interests, these scholars help AHRQ develop areas of
investigation that integrate clinical nursing care questions with
critical issues of quality, effectiveness, cost, and access to
health care.
To help improve communication between AHRQ and the nursing
community, AHRQ is developing a nursing page for the Agency's Web
site, and a nursing LISTSERV® has been established to notify
subscribers electronically about funding opportunities,
conferences, and other activities. The Agency is actively
encouraging more grant applications from nurses as principal
investigators, and growing numbers of AHRQ's priority areas are
especially relevant to nurses: disease prevention, health
promotion, primary care, quality of care delivery, and service
delivery. Input from nursing is essential to improving health care
quality, and nurses are encouraged to apply for research funding,
concludes Dr. Burstin.
See "Future directions in primary care research: Special issues
for nurses," by Dr. Burstin, Mr. Lewin, and Ms. Hubbard, in the
May 2001 Policy, Politics, and Nursing Practice 103, pp.
103-107.
Reprints are available from the AHRQ Publications
Clearinghouse.
These are excerpts from the AHRQ Research Activities,
you can read their full reports at
http://www.ahrq.gov/research/jun01/601RA6.htm |