Development of a public health nursing quality assessment measure

The Ervin Quality Assessment Measure (EQAM) is a newly developed instrument that assesses the quality of in-home public health nursing care based on experts' reviews of client/family records. The 14 criteria for quality care included in the EQAM instrument were established based on the input of five nurse experts. A generalizability study of data from EQAM evaluations of 52 client/family records found that the instrument demonstrated a high degree of dependability and a modest degree of interrater agreement. Future studies will examine the usefulness of the EQAM in home health care agencies and possible practical applications of this research instrument.