Nursing plays a critical role to identify and eliminate waste while actively improving systems and care delivery, all resulting in improved patient experiences and outcomes. ONS offers resources to inform healthcare professionals about quality reporting with an emphasis on improvement.
Evidence-based practice is a problem-solving approach to clinical practice that integrates the conscientious use of best research evidence in combination with clinician expertise as well as patient preferences and values to make decisions for care that will promote the optimal outcome.
Quality improvement (QI) is a method of improving clinical processes through the use of quality tools and methods with the goals of the activity depending on the practice gap identified in the performance data.
Data-Driven Quality Improvement refers to the use of scientifically tested quality metric to measure nursing sensitive and patient centered key performance metric to identify gaps in practice and variations between clinician and practice sites. These data are needed to determine greatest opportunities for improvement in practice to prioritize improvement activities.
ONS maintains a portfolio of scientifically tested quality measures. These measures are both process focused and outcome focused. Both process and outcome measures are important for use in a well-designed clinical quality program in oncology care.
Topic |
ONS Practice Resource |
Quality Metric/Tools/Resources |
Cancer-Related Fatigue |
|
Quality Metric: 1. Assessment for Fatigue – process measure 2. Recommendation for Exercise in Adult Cancer Survivors – process measure 3. Fatigue Improvement – outcome measure
|
Health-related Quality of Life |
|
Quality Metric: Health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in Advanced Cancer – outcome measure |
Immune Mediated Adverse Events |
ONS Immunotherapy-induced Diarrhea PEP Resources
|
Quality Metric: Immune-mediated Adverse events – intermediate clinical outcome measure |
Radiodermatitis |
|
|
Skin Toxicity |
|
|
Lymphedema |
|
|
Hot Flashes |
|
|
Constipation |
|
|
Sleep-Wake Disturbance |
Quality Metric: Assessment and Intervention for Sleep-Wake Disturbance during Cancer Treatment – process metric |
|
Prevention of Infection: General |
Quality Metric: Education on Neutropenia Precautions – process measure |
|
Anxiety and Depression |
Quality Metric: Assessment and Intervention for Psychosocial Distress in Adults Receiving Cancer Treatment – process measure |
Why Use ONS Quality Measures?
The ONS eCQMs address care priorities important to people with cancer during and after treatment. The measures address care delivered by the entire health care team, especially providing data to support the value of nursing contributions in delivering quality care.
The ONS eCQMs have been tested for feasibility, reliability and validity; you can use them with confidence and compare your performance to peers within your care setting and across the country.
Contact ONS staff at Research@ons.org to learn more.