Tool to assess the cost and quality benefits of nursing innovation.

Understanding the economic value of nursing services in a time of unprecedented public sector cuts is a challenge. The economic assessment tool (EAT) (RCN 2011) has been designed by the authors of the article for this purpose and generates return on investment dividends for nursing innovations and services. The EAT, which is built on the discipline of improvement and uses many of its tools and techniques, involves four stages: mapping, costing, calculating and reporting. The nursing profession systematically captures a range of clinical data as part of routine care to which monetary values can be assigned. The EAT exploits these data and provides the profession with the economic evidence it might need to sustain quality nursing services in financially uncertain times.