Toward a national nurse-managed health center data set: findings and lessons learned over 3 years

Nurs Outlook. 2010 Mar-Apr;58(2):97-103. doi: 10.1016/j.outlook.2009.10.003.

Abstract

Although primary care nurse-managed health centers (NMHCs) have gained increasing recognition, there are limited standardized clinical and financial data on these centers. The purpose of this paper is to present the process, benefits, and challenges in collecting standardized national data based on a consensus process from NMHCs over 3 consecutive years. The Institute for Nursing Centers (INC) NMHC Survey focuses on demographic, clinical, and financial data. A detailed codebook accompanied the INC NMHC Survey. A total of 42 NMHCs responded in at least 1 of the 3 years. Despite the challenges in collecting some of the data, especially for the first survey year, data quality improved remarkably when the INC NMHC Survey was repeated. Financial data seemed to be more easily reported than demographic or clinical data. NMHCs increase access to care, often for vulnerable populations, yet to date there are limited standardized clinical and financial data on these centers. The INC NHMC Survey and data described in this paper begins to address that gap.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Academies and Institutes
  • Advanced Practice Nursing / organization & administration
  • Benchmarking
  • Community Health Centers / organization & administration*
  • Data Collection / methods
  • Databases, Factual*
  • Financial Management
  • Health Care Surveys / methods*
  • Health Services Accessibility
  • Humans
  • Nursing Research / methods*
  • Practice Patterns, Nurses' / organization & administration*
  • Primary Health Care / organization & administration*
  • United States
  • Vulnerable Populations