Gerontological Nursing Interventions Research Center (GNIRC)

Title: Nursing Outcomes Effectiveness: Hospitalized Elders with Pneumonia

Principal Investigator: Barbara Head, PhD, RN

Study Site: University of Nebraska

Abstract

The proposed pilot study is essential to evaluate the feasibility of a larger multi-site nursing effectiveness study and will focus on older persons with pneumonia (DRGs 89 & 90). The study will use secondary standardized nursing data from 2 midwestern community hospitals to: 1) describe the 10 most frequent (North American nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDAi) diagnoses, Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC) interventions, and Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC) outcomes documented by nurses for patients ≤ 60 years of age with a primary discharge diagnosis of pneunomia (DRGs 89 & 90) in two urban hospitals; 2) describe the process of data retrieval for all variables needed to evaluate the clinical and cost effectiveness of nursing interventions for elders with pneumonia in the two hospitals; and 3) pilot test the development of a data warehouse for a study to evaluate the clinical and cost effectiveness of nursing interventions for elders hospitalized with pneumonia.This study is significant as a preliminary investigation for future studies of the effectiveness of nursing interventions on patient outcomes.  The licensing of SNOMED Ct by the Department of Health and Human Services National nomenclature and resultant likelihood that more health information systems will use standardized nursing languages such as NANDA, NIC and NOC systems makes this pilot study important for potential future research. Investigators will gain valuable experience and will work as PIs of the larger study.