Quality Measures in Nursing

[SCRN19]

Hello!

I have been a bedside nurse for about 10 years and I am looking into something different. There is an opportunity for an RN position within my hospital's Quality Measures Deapartment. Does anyone have a background in this and could perhaps explain to me what this entails with regards to nursing. Thanks!!

SCRN19

[scuba nurse, BSN, MSN, RN]

I worked in this department for about 6 months...honestly, I hated it.

It was a lot of looking at med records and seeing what times certain meds were given for certain conditions, and if the goals were met for certain categories that hospitals get "dinged" on (like stroke, # of c-sections...etc..). Lots of regulatory compliance stuff. Meeting goals that the are established, and proving that the goals were met. Meeting insurance goals (like LOS, treatments...etc..). Also we dealt with patient/family complaints about the hospital, care, doctors, food, just about anything that people can complain about they do, it was lot of pleasing people and making them happy. That was basically the only patient contact I had. Pretty much whenever I walked onto a unit every one as like "OMG, what did we do wrong" like we were the "bad" people to get them in trouble (which yes and no).

If you like a lot of computer work, very detailed oriented stuff, meetings, excel spread sheets, looking at med records and pulling stuff from that, lots of committee work...then this is the job for you! The good side was it was M-F 8-5, no w/e, no holidays.

This may have just been my experience, every hospital is different. GOOD LUCK!