Quality Improvement & Safety Standards Flashcards
7 cards from real ANM practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Quality Improvement & Safety Standards flashcards as text
A unit's catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) rate exceeds the NHSN benchmark. Which intervention addresses the most common preventable risk factor?
Answer: Reviewing catheter necessity daily and removing unnecessary catheters promptly
Daily review and timely removal of unnecessary urinary catheters is the single most effective evidence-based intervention to reduce CAUTI rates.
Under the CMS Conditions of Participation, hospitals are required to report which type of event to CMS as a condition of Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement?
Answer: Sentinel events resulting in unexpected patient death or serious harm
CMS Conditions of Participation require hospitals to have processes for identifying and analyzing sentinel events, and certain serious events must be reported to maintain certification.
The Lean methodology's concept of 'waste' (Muda) in healthcare refers to:
Answer: Any activity that consumes resources without adding patient value
In Lean thinking, waste (Muda) encompasses any process step or activity that uses time and resources but does not add value from the patient's perspective.
A hospital is implementing a Crew Resource Management (CRM) training program on a surgical unit. What patient safety concept does CRM primarily address?
Answer: Effective teamwork, communication, and situational awareness to prevent errors
CRM, adapted from aviation, focuses on optimizing human factors — communication, teamwork, and situational awareness — to prevent errors in high-stakes clinical environments.
Which statistical process control tool is BEST used to monitor a quality metric over time and detect special cause variation?
Answer: Control chart (run chart with control limits)
Control charts display data over time with calculated control limits that distinguish common cause (random) variation from special cause (assignable) variation requiring investigation.
An ANM is creating a quality dashboard for nursing staff. Which metric best reflects patient-centered care quality for a medical-surgical unit?
Answer: Patient satisfaction scores for pain management responsiveness
Patient satisfaction scores for pain management directly reflect the patient's experience of care quality, making them a valid patient-centered quality metric.
When implementing a new hand hygiene protocol, the Hawthorne effect might cause measurement bias because:
Answer: Staff increase compliance when they know they are being observed
The Hawthorne effect is the tendency for people to modify behavior when they know they are being watched, which can artificially inflate observed compliance rates.