Championing Quality and Safety Through Perioperative Nurse Advocacy

Perioperative nurses use evidence-based practice to achieve optimal outcomes when caring for patients. Translating evidence-based guidelines into practice, however, can be difficult, especially when barriers to compliance are present. Compliance barriers may arise from organizational culture, knowledge deficits, absence of policy, shortcuts, competing priorities, time constraints, physician pushback, or system-level barriers. When evidence-based practices are not followed, patient safety events and suboptimal outcomes may occur. This article addresses how legislative advocacy and policy provide solutions when barriers prevent full compliance or efforts fail. Even with organizational policy solutions, barriers to implementation may still exist. Perioperative nurses should therefore advocate in policy arenas to promote change that results in optimal quality and safety outcomes for themselves, their team, and their patients. Compliance, barriers, and advocacy are explored to navigate the intersections of policy, quality, and safety.