Inquest on QUEST

Area of Science:

• Healthcare quality improvement
• Nursing management
• Geriatric care assessment

Background:

• Measuring healthcare quality is crucial for service improvement.
• Existing tools may not adequately address specific patient populations like the elderly.
• Nurse managers play a key role in developing practical quality assessment tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the development of a quality of care measurement tool by nurse managers.
• To detail the adaptation of this tool for general elderly services.
• To evaluate the tool's impact on service provision in community hospitals.

Main Methods:

• Development of a quality measurement tool by nurse managers for mental hospital wards.
• Adaptation of the tool for use in general elderly care settings.
• Evaluation using Donabedian's structure/process/outcome model and Maxwell's six dimensions of quality.

Main Results:

• The study details the process of tool development and adaptation.
• The impact of the tool on service provision within community hospitals was examined.
• The tool was evaluated against established quality frameworks.

Conclusions:

• The developed tool provides a framework for measuring quality of care in elderly services.
• Adaptation of the tool demonstrated its flexibility across different healthcare settings.
• The evaluation confirmed the tool's utility in assessing healthcare quality.