Successful progressive care units (PCUs) operate in a benchmarking, evidence-based practice environment, and maintain strong interdisciplinary teams to efficiently measure outcomes.

Major health care agencies support this approach, including the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), which encourages organizations to evaluate themselves and perform activities using an interdisciplinary team approach.1 

As addressed in the preceding articles of this 6-part series exclusively endorsed by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), measuring outcomes—such as decreased length of stay (LOS)—is critical to gaining staff support for implementing a PCU.2– 6 

In health care, the terms benchmarking and best practice are described as continuous, collaborative, and systematic processes for measuring and examining internal programs’ strengths and weaknesses. They’re also commonly used to describe data comparison for the purpose of learning about and adapting best clinical or operational practices.7 

Best practice departments exceed the national benchmark. Similar departments nationwide,...

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