Guidelines for professional development in the formulation of nursing standards

Quality improvement is a process of standard formulation, evaluation whether nurses comply with these standards, as well as remedial action to improve the quality of nursing care rendered. This article describes guidelines for the professional development in the formulation of nursing standards. It is based on the Model for standard development and was successfully implemented in a nursing service. An exploratory and descriptive research strategy was utilised and executed in a nursing service of an academic hospital in Gauteng. The implementation of these guidelines should facilitate excellence in standard formulation.