Development of a nurse executive decision support database. A model for outcomes evaluation.

It is increasingly more important that nurse executives systematically evaluate innovations and changes in nursing practice and management. To plan effectively, data elements that are most appropriate for decision making must be identified and strategies for data collection and analysis must be formulated. The author describes a model in which an identifiable group of clinical, fiscal, quality, productivity, and care provider variables serve as data for baseline and later comparative evaluations.