How Important is Clinical Quality in Global Nursing Placement? 

Different cultures mean different approaches and influences on the medical industry. It would thus be a great idea to have international nurses in your organization. However, the move to hire nurses from various countries should come from a conscious decision that their backgrounds are indeed needed. This is when clinical quality measures come in handy.

Particularly for those vying to become immigrant nurses in the US, it is not enough that they are passionate about patient care. They would need to pass another layer of scrutiny: clinical quality. Find out what various clinical quality standards are and how healthcare organizations like yours can use them for hiring nurses.

What Are the Uses of Clinical Quality Measures or CQMs?

The simplest way to understand clinical quality measures is how much a factor within the medical institution contributes to a better quality of life. CQMs can be metrics in evaluating processes, outcomes, or experiences of how they are connected to a specific factor in healthcare, such as safety, efficiency, and timely care.

A hospital, for example, may hire a clinical quality specialist just to ensure they are continuously exerting efforts that will lead to patients’ overall health. However, it does not stop with merely being able to help patients coming in and out. Clinical indicators must be consistent with set goals so that the medical organization is on a steady trajectory of providing quality service.

Gathering a report of all CQMs might take a while, especially if yours is a rather big medical institution. Some may find the task daunting, but hospital leaders should see gathering CQMs as a means to document current needs and project how an organization can either grow or struggle in the future. Additionally, CQMs also have relevance in hiring international nurses, which we will explain later.

What Are the Three Main Types of Clinical Quality Measures?

There are actually a total of five types of measures, but the other two (patient experience measures and access measures) are not widely used. It can be considered that these two may already have been covered in the other three main types more commonly used across healthcare institutions:

• Process measures. This particular CQM is all about activity performed with and for patients. Each step in attending to patients is assessed on how much such steps contribute to overall patient recovery. For instance, how many patients received blood pressure monitoring at a consistent time? What consequences were observed for those who were monitored at a later time? These are examples of process measures.

• Outcome measures. While the efforts of healthcare workers are looked after, outcomes are equally important. Outcome measures help reveal the success rate of patient care. Success here, take note, is not always about patients recovering fully. Outcome measures can also talk about effectiveness through consistency. Going back to the example of blood pressure monitoring. An outcome measure would be how many patients had consistent blood pressure measurements in the past week. It can be seen here that a process measure (blood pressure monitoring) is indeed connected to an outcome measure (consistently healthy blood pressure).

• Structure measures. These measures can reveal if the organization can indeed provide high-quality healthcare. For example, are the institution’s resources enough to give the right services to patients? Are there enough licensed nurses in the hospital? Will the clinic be able to upgrade to more up-to-date technologies? The quality of these “structures” are crucial to running a hospital or any medical institution.

How Can You Employ These CQMs In Hiring International Nurses?

Gathering info through CQMs is not just a step toward hiring nurses but in improving your performance as a healthcare organization. Whether you hire a clinical quality specialist or will just create an ad-hoc team, CQMs are a particular way to evaluate how your medical workforce is doing. This will also spell out how many international nurses you will need.

Here are a few suggestions on how you can link your CQMs to calibrating the profile of the international nurse you’ll need:

• Evaluate if your medical institution is indeed ready for more employees. CQMs can be used to calculate how many international nurses should be working with you. However, a good set of numbers relating to patient satisfaction and monitoring of equipment is a tell-tale sign that hiring new nurses may not be helpful at the moment. However, this does not mean the search for international nurses is over. CQMs can also pinpoint what concerns your institution may have in the future. Keep a talent pool of international numbers at hand in case your hospital needs temporary nurses or new hires.

• Be mindful in choosing which nurses will fill gaps. It is good that nurses are flocking to the US to grab employment opportunities. However, as one of those employers, be conscious of what kinds of nurses your institution really needs instead of just hiring any international nurse. A diverse workforce sounds good on paper, but their skills and experience will be wasted if there is no real need for them.

• Envision the international nurse’s future with you. CQMs can also help forecast what areas would be filled out in the future. Is your organization aiming for expansion? Will the institution be delving into new ventures in medicine? Since the healthcare industry is still a competition between institutions, your workforce should also be competitive.

• See if the potential hire is willing to take on responsibilities in the future. Some international nurses are open to being in management when the time comes or even learning other specializations. Also, it will help if the person you hire is indeed invested in nursing as a career.

PRS GLOBAL KNOWS HOW TO HIRE INTERNATIONAL NURSES.

In case you need the help of nurses from across the globe, consider the services of a staffing partner that understands how to create an international nursing workforce. As a recruitment powerhouse for nurses across the globe, PRS Global is here to help you.

While many immigrant nurses enter the US, PRS Global will sift through them and place the right candidate with the right organization. Once nurses are hired, they are adequately briefed about the institution they will be working for. It also designed The Bright HorizonsTM Program to help immigrant nurses adjust well to their new living and working environment.

Use CQMs to identify how else your organization can become the best. But when it comes to hiring the best, PRS Global is your ally in scouring the world for the most caring yet highly competitive nurses. Contact us today.