One of the supervisors for a home health agency asks the nurse to give the family a survey evaluating the nurses and other service providers. How should the nurse interpret this request?

A) Inappropriate, unless nurses are able to evaluate family.
B) Appropriate to improve quality of care.
C) Inappropriate, unless nurses and other providers agree to participate.
D) Inappropriate, because family lacks knowledge necessary to evaluate professionals.

Quality assessment and improvement activities are essential for virtually all organizations. Family involvement is essential in evaluating a home care plan and can occur on several levels. The nurse can ask the family open-ended questions at regular intervals to assess their opinion of the effectiveness of care. Families should also be given an opportunity to evaluate the individual home care nurses, the home care agency, and other service providers periodically. The nurse is the care provider. The evaluation is of the provision of care to the patient and family. The nurse's role is not to evaluate the family. Quality-monitoring activities are required by virtually all health care agencies. During the evaluation process, the family is requested to provide their perceptions of care.