Planning for patient care redesign: success through continuous quality improvement.

A key to improving patient care in hospitals is the use of staff nurses on a continuous quality improvement team to redesign the patient care delivery model. This article describes the planning process and strategies for patient care delivery redesign on a medical-surgical unit in a small community hospital. A team of 12 staff nurses working with trained facilitators and a team leader began the seven-month project. The article describes how the team assessed the needs of the customers, developed a plan for a pilot, and drafted evaluation criteria.