Explain The Six Aims Of Improvement In Nursing Care

Working as nursing professionals, we specialize in providing care to individuals, families, and loved ones, so that they may recover and maintain optimal health for a long period of time. Even though there are different means of care, not everything is 100% percent effective. This can be due to issues such as lack of health care, medical errors, and even shortage of care in the medical facility. Over time, the health care system continues to improve, as it still has a long way to go.

Nursing and the Six Aims of Improvement

In March of 2001, the National Academy of Medicine (2001) created ideas on how the health care system can be improved. They called it the six aims for improvement. In their article titled Crossing the Quality Chasm: A

The six aims for improvement discusses this and they are as followed:

1. Safe: avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them.

2. Effective: providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit, and refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit.

3. Patient-centered: providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values, and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.

4. Timely: reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care.

5. Efficient: avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas, and energy.

6. Equitable: providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status. (National Academy of Medicine, 2001, pg.

In order words, you should treat those the way you would like to be treated. As a soon to be healthcare personnel, we spent numerous years receiving the education in order to be prepared for any situation which comes our way. By relying on the previous and current experiences which we face, this will help us become more logical thinkers, easy decision makers, and strong leaders as we avoid poor health care and build around the six aims of improvement. We can provide safe, effective, and patient-centered care by taking out time with each and every patient. We should avoid being in such a rush of discharging them or wanting to get the day over with quicker because as a nurse you may never know what will come your way next. Care can be done in a timely and efficient manner by setting up a more successful strategy for care such as having more staff or directing patients to proper units/facilities based on their needs or wants. This will also create less waste of equipment, supplies, and ideas which is under the efficient aim. Lastly, care can be equitable by treating each and every individual with respect. By giving those respect, this will help you in the long run and you will be able to provide care as a nurse everywhere you go. By providing these examples, there should no issue as to why myself or others cannot attain to these six