Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient care—not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes.

To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality—Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses." [From http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/]

Experts in the field reviewed the literature, and their contributions are grouped into these sections:

• Patient Safety and Quality
  
• Evidence-based Practice
• Patient-centered Care
• Working Conditions—Work Environment
• Critical Opportunities for Patient Safety and Quality
• Tools

Each section contains a number of subsections, each accessible as an online PDF file that can be printed out. The see the list of topics within the Handbook visit Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043).