Empowering staff nurses to participate in the American Nurses Association's call for quality indicators research.

The American Nurses Association (ANA) advocates establishment of a national database, which can collect, aggregate, and analyze patient data to link nursing activities to 10 quality of care outcomes. These outcomes, developed through extensive research, can highlight the essential nature of nursing, demonstrate institutional compliance with external standards, and justify registered nurse staffing patterns. Staff nurses collect and record the data that provide the foundation for the quality nursing indicators research initiative. This paper focuses on the important and unique role that staff nurses can play in advancing this agenda.