Technology Monitors Nursing Performance

Regulatory requirements

They also pulled in the requirements for NIAHO (National Integrated Accreditation for Healthcare Organization) standards in order to align their required training with the standards (the organization is DNV accredited). But they also looked beyond their own standards for best practices.

"We still look at The Joint Commission because they also have wonderful practices. We put everything we were doing under the appropriate categories," says Delk-Fikes. "If a regulatory agency says okay, you need to provide training on, for example, confidentiality and ethics, we need to know how to demonstrate that."

To show all the components they engage in annually is great, but how does it align with the standards? You need to be able to demonstrate that.

Nursing excellence documentation

Midland Memorial is seeking ANCC Magnet Recognition Program® (MRP) status. They need to be able to track and trend their nursing education to show progress. With the new system, they are able to drill down, whether it's an organizational problem they want to fix, or a performance issue they want to improve.

"If our scores are stagnating at 88 or 89% and we want to do better, we can do that," says Delk-Fikes.

The way a critical care unit nurse is trained is completely different from a pediatric nurse. Under the new system the organization can document the progression of each nurse in accordance to their unit's requirements.

"One of the things about this system that we're using is that, for MRP's requirements in the area of innovation and technology and nurse organization-wise performance, this actually is your Source of Evidence," says Delk-Fikes. "If you want to show nurses are growing professionally, you can pull it from this program."

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