Advancing nursing leadership: a model for program implementation and measurement.

Despite the abundant literature documenting the need for nurse management education and career development, only recently have professional standards been targeted for this group. Competency standards for nurse leaders repeatedly identify systems-level concepts including finance and budget, communication skills, strategic management, human resources management, change management, and computer technology skills. However, educational initiatives to meet these standards are still at the early stages and most nurse leaders continue to acquire knowledge and experience through "on-the-job" training.

Pediatric nurse staffing and quality of care in the hospital setting.

Indicators of quality and nurse staffing in pediatrics are distinct from adults. A retrospective, correlational, linear mixed model design was used to describe relationships between pediatric nurse staffing and 5 indicators of quality care from a convenience sample of 7 academic children's hospitals. Key findings supported a strong inverse relationship between the proportion of hours of pediatric nursing care delivered by registered nurses and the rate of occurrence of central line (P < .

Reporting of medication errors by pediatric nurses.

Medication administration errors can threaten patient outcomes and are a dimension of patient safety directly linked to nursing care. Children are particularly vulnerable to medication errors because of their unique physiology and developmental needs. This descriptive study surveyed a convenience sample of 57 pediatric and 227 adult hospital nurses regarding their perceptions of the proportion of medication errors reported on their units, why medication errors occur, and why medication errors are not always reported.

Parents experiences of their child's care during hospitalization.

Driven by the institutionalization of healthcare, and the attendant financial and regulatory issues, health caregivers now need to objectively define and assess the quality of care that is delivered to patients. Measures of quality care for children lag behind the measures that are utilized for adults. To date, little is understood about how quality care for children is identified and measured.