The National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) is one such database that provides information that helps registered nurse (RN) in evaluating patient outcomes, as it looks at quality improvement activities. Moreover, the database looks at the “relationship between nurse staffing and patient outcomes” by looking at certain units such as psychiatric, critical care, medical or surgical, rehabilitation, step down, and pediatric (NDNQI, 2010b). The overuse, underuse, and or even misuse of specific inpatient procedure exemplify data on poor healthcare quality. Since physicians do not have ready access to data needed in the caring for the patient, quality problems cannot be eliminated in an organization. The delivery systems for health practitioners have not been helpful in assisting them to provide error-free care. This has made healthcare practitioners not having relevant and timely information concerning the care of their patients. Quality improvement can be viewed as a daily task in patient care by incorporating the following principles: QI will need to work as systems and processes; patients should be the focus of the program; focus is given to being part of the team, and use of data is important. The toolkit of working as systems and processes entails the recognition of both resources and...

The focus on patients will facilitate the meeting of their needs and expectations, which is the mission of most healthcare organizations (HRSA, 2011). QI is achieved through teams. Therefore, knowledge, experience, skills, and perspectives are harnessed from different team members makes the organization have lasting improvements and success. For QI, data has been displayed as its cornerstone because it gives a description of the current system in the organization; what happens when change is applied in the organization; and successful performance is also documented.
Continuous quality improvement activities are always associated with the change because it helps an organization in understanding its strengths and weaknesses. This is good for the organization because it helps them in assessing their readiness to change. This increases its ability to support the goals identified under QI. The commitment of the organization to QI, the knowledge of its leaders about its QI principles, channels of communication, and teamwork are some of the fundamental traits considered to achieve success (HRSA, 2011).

Functional nursing care delivery model is the least effective because it may be fragmented. It…