Quality Improvement Approach to Nursing Care Planning: Implementing Practical Computerized Standards

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Abstract
Care planning continues to be be an integral part of nursing, yet it is often criticized by professionals as time-consuming, repetitious, and inconsistent. This problematic situation prompted the development and implementation of an interdisciplinary automated care-planning system that interfaces with a preexisting data base. The advantages of the system include standardization of care, consolidated documentation, provision of patient education tools, shared responsibility during the patient's length of stay, and minimal cost. Evaluation of the system demonstrated quality improvement in the documentation of patient education and compliance in meeting JCAHO nursing process standards.