Use of performance indicators in the Nursing Service of a public hospital

The study aimed to identify performance indicators adopted by the Nursing Service of a public hospital and to analyze the opinions of the nurses regarding the use of these indicators to evaluate the quality of the nursing care. This is descriptive exploratory study with a quantitative approach, which used data from the management reports of the institution and applied a questionnaire in a sample of 25 nurses. It was found that the institution works with three databases of indicators, two being general and one specific for Nursing, which analyze 11 indicators. The indicators of pressure ulcer incidence and incidence of falls were the only ones considered highly relevant to qualify the nursing care for 100% of the nurses. It was concluded that the institution uses indicators for monitoring outcomes and tends to valorize the use of process indicators by the nurses to evaluate the Nursing performance, with it being necessary to expand the analysis to include multi-disciplinary indicators.