[The "Zurich quality model of nursing care", based on the "quality of health outcome model" (QHOM): a new perspective in measuring quality in nursing care]

Ensuring and maintaining a high level of quality in nursing care becomes more and more important as economic pressure is increasing and personnel is being reduced. The nursing executives of four large Swiss hospitals therefore commissioned a group of nursing scientists and nursing experts with the task of developing a trendsetting model to represent, assess, and interpret the quality of nursing care. The "Quality of Health Outcome Model" (QHOM) served as a basis for development. More than 60 nurses from acute care hospitals and specialized clinics assessed a first draft of the model in hearings and by means of questionnaires. The model integrated earlier attempts at quality screening regarding structures, processes and results, complementing these three elements with a fourth: the patients, whose characteristics influence the results of nursing care remarkably. Thus, the former one-dimensional, linear viewpoint was resolved into a dynamic representation of all four elements, illustrating a specific concept of nursing care. Through the multi-dimensionality of the model the complexity of the nursing process is better represented. The model's core consists of eight exemplary indicators of quality, each of which is relevant to nursing and for each of which criteria and assessment tools have been formulated. The model is seen as a basis and reference for the quality development and first opportunities for clinical application have been succesfully employed. The project can serve as a paradigm of networking amongst hospitals and cooperation between nursing scientists and experts, and of the critical significance of such collaboration to the advancement of nursing quality.