Nurses are professionally and morally obliged to monitor and evaluate nursing practice via active participation in review mechanisms that are designed to promote patient safety and care delivery, thereby improving patient care quality (American Nurses Association [ANA], 1988, 2001, 2004; O\u27Rourke, 2006). The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project was to develop, pilot, and evaluate a nurse practice review process with frontline nurses within Fresno Heart & Surgical Hospital (FHSH), a small specialty hospital, affiliated with Community Medical Centers (CMC) in Fresno, California. A nurse practice algorithm was subsequently developed and structural empowerment was assessed with the Conditions of Work Effectiveness Questionnaire-II (CWEQ-II) (Laschinger, Finegan, Shamian, & Wilk, 2001). While there was a small sample size, the DNP project evaluation demonstrated that frontline nurses want to participate in improvement activities within the facility and believed the nurse practice review algorithm would effectively monitor and evaluate nursing practice
