Initiative Overview and Goals

Patient care is increasingly a team effort that demands standardized practices and effective systems to facilitate teamwork and communication between healthcare professionals. However, such practices and systems are inconsistently applied within the nation’s hospitals.  Furthermore, nurses, who provide approximately 95 percent of patient care in hospitals, face many challenges within today’s complex hospital environment.

The Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative is working in five San Francisco Bay Area counties to address registered nurse (RN)-related challenges, such as a serious and growing shortage of RNs; existing systems that do not consistently safeguard against dangerous and avoidable medical errors; and RN training that has not kept pace with technological advancements and the changing needs of more seriously ill patients.

The Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative seeks to create a replicable model for improving nursing-related patient care through a regional system that expands the RN workforce and implements hospital best practices.  The success of the Initiative will be measured by comparing changes over time in patient outcomes related to nursing care, such as preventable complications, mortality, patient experience and other indicators.