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Nurses heavily influence patient care quality and safety. This paper aims to examine socioeconomic and organizational/system factors affecting patient safety and quality perceptions.

A questionnaire was constructed to gather demographic, managerial support, information technology implementation and integration information. Data were collected from nurses in five Riyadh hospitals, Saudi Arabia. Registered nurses working in hospital departments participated in the survey. A total of 566 completed questionnaires were returned. Subsequent data were analyzed through binary logistic regression.

Factors that improve patient safety and the likelihood that nurses use their own facility include: fewer visible errors; ability to communicate suggestions; information technology support and training; and a confidential error reporting system.

The survey was a cross‐sectional study. Consequently, it is difficult to establish causation. Furthermore, nursing in these hospitals is dominated by foreign nationals. Also, as with all surveys, this research may be subject to response bias. Although the questionnaire was randomly distributed, there were no mechanisms to assure privacy and minimize peer influence. The high positive patient safety perceptions may be influenced by either individual or peer biases.

Nurses are important communicators; especially about hospital safety and quality. The research informs leaders about areas that need considering and improving. Findings indicate that system factors, including functional feedback, suggestions, and error reporting significantly affect patient safety improvements. Likewise, nurse education to operate their information systems has positive effects. Healthcare leaders need to understand factors that affect patient safety perceptions when creating a patient safety culture.

Few international articles examine the factors that influence nurses' patient safety perceptions or examine those factors that affect these perceptions. This paper adds value by researching what influences patient safety perceptions among Riyadh nurses.

Suggests that with the shortage of nursing personnel, hospital administrators have to pay more attention to the needs of nurses to retain and recruit them. Also asserts that improving nurses’ schedules is one of the most economic ways for the hospital administration to create a better working environment for nurses. Develops an algorithm for scheduling nursing personnel. Contrary to the current hospital approach, which schedules nurses on a person‐by‐person basis, the proposed algorithm constructs schedules on a day‐by‐day basis. The algorithm has inherent flexibility in handling a variety of possible constraints and goals, similar to other non‐cyclical approaches. But, unlike most other non‐cyclical approaches, it can also generate a quality schedule in a short time on a microcomputer. The algorithm was coded in C language and run on a microcomputer. The developed software is currently implemented at a leading hospital in Taiwan. The response to the initial implementation is quite promising.

Examines in detail the issue of absence among nurses in the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. Three main objectives are to: investigate levels and reasons for absence among nurses; assess the abilities of NHS management to monitor and control nurse absence effectively; and examine the impact of nurse absence on organizational costs and care delivery. Draws on data generated from four linked studies: a survey of back‐injured nurses, conducted in 1992; a survey of 4,000 qualified nurse members of the Royal College of Nursing, conducted in March/April 1993; a postal survey of 119 NHS employing units, conducted in May/June 1993; and detailed case studies, conducted with management in ten NHS hospital sites in May/June 1993.

Recent government proposals seek to extend the role of nurses into management at a time of (yet another) cultural transformation for the British National Health Service (NHS). This is especially the case for line managers involved in service‐delivery, ward managers and clinical nurse managers for instance, roles typically undertaken by senior nurses. This paper aims to give some insight into the role of nurses as managers in the NHS hospital service. Data presented were collected as part of a longitudinal qualitative study, 1994 to date, in a North West trust hospital. The role of ward and unit management has significantly changed since the early images of the nurse as manager and it is hardly surprising that, given the fundamental shift in the framework of values and attitudes, senior nurses have greeted the management role with mixed feelings.

Quality of health care is the degree of the most optimal degree of health outcomes by delivery of effective, efficient and cost‐benefit professional health services to people and communities. As nurses are the largest groups among health care professionals and are legally liable and morally responsible for their care, thus their perspective on quality of nursing care is important. The purpose of this qualitative study is “to define and describe quality from the perspective of nursing experts and clinical nurses”.

In this paper data were collected in two phases (ten individual interviews and five focus group discussions). A total of 44 clinical nurses and ten nursing experts participated through a purposeful sampling frame. Data analysis was conducted by latent content analysis to achieve a definition of nursing care quality.

The findings in this paper show that, according to similarities and differences between nursing experts' and clinical nurses' perspectives on quality, the final definition is “delivery of safety care based on nursing standards which eventuates in patient satisfaction”. Findings reveal that in nurses' perspectives on quality definition two important aspects have been mostly considered: “standard of care” and “patient satisfaction”. Moreover, both participant groups have emphasized the benefits of collaborative work in health care (teamwork). Further in this study, organizational and socio‐cultural roles in delivering quality nursing care have been mentioned such as staffing, budget, leadership, and social perspectives about nursing as a highly educated profession.

The paper offers an overview of nurses' perspectives of quality of nursing care in Iran.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a simple tool that enables inpatient psychiatric adolescent units to relate patient dependency to the number of nursing staff needed to give a defined level of care. Recorded at the same time was the number of nurses on each shift, and if they felt there were enough of them. A simple measure of what the ward felt like and if the nurses felt they had been therapeutic was also made for each shift. Some results are presented and an attempt made to relate the number of staff needed to give a certain quality of care in the context of rising dependency levels.

An observational study collecting quantitative data including patient dependency, staffing and staff satisfaction. These were recorded daily for three years.

Results show that when there is high dependency in the ward, if there are not enough nurses, then quality of care suffers. For our ward, a minimum of 11 nurses are needed to cover each 24 hours and more if the dependency levels go up. If there are less than 11 nurses then the quality of care suffers.

Makes a strong connection between workload, staffing and care quality in a specific care group.

Concerns of nursing literature today reflect the aspirations and changing character of the profession as it seeks to:

This paper addresses the issues arising from the current demographic trends. There is an attempt to highlight the problems arising from a shortage of nurses, how that will affect the work of other health care professionals, and how the problem can be dealt with.

The paper aims to examine the concept of a nurse development unit and its impact on the quality of nursing practice.

The study uses the Nurse Development Unit at Tameside as an example and the implications for both the patients and nurses are explored.

The paper finds that initial assessments of the Unit and its impact on quality assurance have been very positive, with great emphasis being placed on the patient as a consumer of the quality provided.

The paper provides useful information on the development of quality assurance in nursing.

There is increasing evidence in the literature that patient outcome is strongly linked to the quality of nursing care. In practice, the process of measuring the quality of nursing care is complex and multifaceted as it is dependent not only on the skills and practices of the individual nurse, but also on the professional and organisational structure that is practised within. The expert panel concept was developed to address clinical standards and practice at The Royal Melbourne Hospital. The Nursing Expert Panel's purpose was to evaluate nursing practice, identify practice deficits, highlight areas of clinical innovation and excellence, and make recommendations where appropriate to improve patient outcome. The aim of this paper is to investigate this.

A pilot programme to evaluate eight clinical areas was developed and implemented. The key areas of evaluation included clinical care as well as the managerial and professional practices that support patient care. The Expert Panel, consisting of predominantly nursing staff, was recruited from within the organisation. During the evaluation, the panel collected qualitative and quantitative data using a variety of data collection tools. Data were then analysed and recommendations developed.

Five common themes of practice deficit were identified during the pilot period and the development of strategies for practice improvement is in progress.

Following successful implementation of the pilot phase, the Nursing Expert Panel process is now being implemented across the organisation. With ongoing evaluation and improvement of the Expert Panel Process, this quality initiative will become the foundation of nursing standards and practice evaluation at this organisation.