Realizing Momentum and Synergy: Benchmarking Meaningful Ambulatory Care Nurse-Sensitive Indicators

Nurses have the potential to positively impact patient outcomes and make changes in care delivery models to improve care and decrease cost. Registered nurses are the ideal team members to expand the capacity in primary care; however, their true impact and utilization has been underutilized. To show the impact nurses can have, nurse leaders and researchers must leverage nursing-sensitive indicators (NSIs) and make comparisons with demographic and role information. To make these comparisons and provide the most cost-effective, efficient, and high-quality care to patients in the ambulatory care setting, nurse leaders and healthcare leaders need to gather data on the various NSIs for benchmarking. The more data that can be gathered, the better comparisons can be made and staffing models can be modified.