Maria da Conceição Bento (President of the Nursing School of Coimbra)

Manuel Alves Rodrigues (Scientific Coordinator of the Health Sciences Research Unit: Nursing - ESEnfC)

Pedro Lopes Ferreira (PhD Professor, Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra)

António Fernando Amaral (Coordinating Professor, Nursing School of Coimbra)

Pedro Lopes Ferreira (PhD Professor, Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra)

Moderator: 

Rogério Manuel Clemente Rodrigues (Adjunct Professor, Nursing School of Coimbra)

- Health workforce and practice environments – Gilles Dussault (PhD Professor of the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical)

- A measurement to evaluate practice environments (PES-NWI) – Maria Lucília Silva Cardoso (Research grant holder)

- Practice environments and patient obtained outcomes – Telma Vidinha (Research grant holder)

- The RN4Cast study in Portugal - Élvio Henriques (Professor of the Portuguese Catholic University, Institute of Health Sciences)

Moderator:

Paulo Joaquim Pina Queirós (Coordinating Professor, Nursing School of Coimbra)

Riitta Suhonen (Professor, Turku University, Finland)

Moderator:

António Fernando Amaral (Coordinating Professor, Nursing School of Coimbra)

António Fernando Amaral (Coordinating Professor, Nursing School of Coimbra)

Moderator:

José Carlos Santos (Coordinating Professor, Nursing School of Coimbra)

Moderator: Telma Vidinha; Maria Lucília Cardoso.

(Presentations from the services who participated in the study “Nursing care outcomes: quality and effectiveness”)

Rationale

While not new, the concept of nursing-sensitive health outcomes is now becoming particularly relevant. Understanding the impact of each discipline or profession on the health and well-being of people is a necessity in periods of economic constraints.
Society moved from the enshrinement of health professionals, whose decisions were indisputable, to their accountability. They need to be held responsible for what they do and why they do it, the potential outcomes of their actions and, ultimately, the associated costs.
Research shows that health care has entered the age of “accountability”, which is visible through the increasing number of studies on effectiveness and health care outcomes.
In addition to the complexity associated to care and to care provision settings, the myriad of opinions on what to measure also challenges the still complex process of measuring the impact of nursing care on people. However, the more data we collect on care and its impact, the greater the possibilities of providing effective quality care.