Nurse Mentor

Your patient satisfaction scores went up by two points this month. YAY! Your patient satisfaction scores went down three points the following month. Boo! Those monthly scores feel like an emotional roller coaster, right? Then you add on all the other relevant quality outcome measures your employer has decided are important and it can get even more crazy and complex. Depending on your manager, they either take them very seriously or they understand the complexities of measuring patient outcomes.  How do we handle all the new data coming at us more sanely?  Here's a solution. Statistical Process Control.   What is it? Here's a generally agreed upon definition: Statistical process control  (SPC) is a method of quality  control  which employs  statistical  methods to monitor and  control  a  process . This helps to ensure that the  process  operates efficiently, producing more specification-conforming products with l...

I've been thinking about this topic for a long time.  It's one where I get the most questions from students about which doctoral degree to do in their future career path. The short answer comes with questions: What do you want to do with your doctoral degree?  Do you want to design and conduct research?  Do you want to focus on applying and testing evidence in clinical practice?  Your answer to that question will determine your educational program choice. Let's start with why you would choose a PhD. Around the world, everyone knows what a PhD is as a degree.  Doesn't matter where you got it from, with a PhD after your name people will recognize you spent a lot of time in school and must have passed some higher standard of educational preparation.   Outside the United States, except for maybe Canada, no one knows what a DNP degree is or what you can do with it.   It will take decades before that happens.  If you think you want a career with an...