Quality Of Life and Nursing: a Position Paper

Introduction: This paper presents a historical review of quality assurance in nursing with terminological definitions. General issues involving the evaluation of quality of care are discussed and key questions tackled. Aims: The aims of this paper were to critically discuss and analyze the essence of quality as a construct with high relevance to nursing practice. Also, to look at quality through a series of important benchmark questions such as who evaluates, who is the evaluated, what is evaluated, whose interests are involved. Methods: An online search in Medline, CINHAL, PsycINFO, ELIN, Embase, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews was conducted. Retrieved studies were screened to meet certain inclusion criteria, i.e. relevance, significant meanings in correspondence with this paper’s aims and of interest to an international nursing readership. Results: Data were abstracted from each paper and tabulated for further discussion and data synthesis. Nurses have been fervent supporters of quality assurance as it provides feedback to the profession about its practices and effectiveness of care. The hospital, as an independent organization in the health care industry, sees nursing as the provider closest to the consumer so is very concerned with the quality of nursing care. Nurses see through the lens of the customer and understand his or her wants and needs and therefore understand business better than other providers. Conclusions: The main conclusion of this position paper is that a major underlying reason for quality of care evaluation is the measurement of costs. As the goal for every successful manager is to minimise costs while maintaining quality. This equates nursing evaluation to the evaluation of a business modela parallel which does not appeal to the caring profession of nursing.