Linking critical care family research to quality assurance

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations standards require the inclusion of all major clinical functions performed by nurses in the nursing quality assurance (QA) program. To achieve this goal, nurses must first define the scope of care, which includes articulating the specific activities performed in the critical care unit, who provides the care, where and when nursing care is provided, and to whom nursing care is provided. Interventions directed toward families are recognized as falling within the scope of nursing practice. This article addresses how family research was used to develop a QA tool to evaluate family satisfaction with nursing interventions to meet their identified needs in an intensive care unit setting.