Nurse Competency Paper

The six Quality and Safety Education for Nurses competencies that were developed for pre-licensure and graduate nursing programs are patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice (EBP), quality improvement (QI), safety, and informatics.

In October 2005 the Quality and Safety Education for Nursing program was established. This program is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. QSEN was developed specifically for future nurses to understand and be aware of key challenges such as the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are essential to constantly advance the quality and safety of the way healthcare systems work. The goal for QSEN is to reshape the identity of nursing so it includes the recommendations by the Institute of Medicine so there is a commitment to the quality and safety proficiency (Dycus, 2009).

Quality and Safety Education in Nursing (QSEN) was started around 2005 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. QSEN's main goal is to “prepare future nurses with knowledge, skills and attitudes (or KSAs) necessary to continuously improve the quality and safety of the healthcare system,” (QSEN, 2017). “Integration of clinical skills with the intellectual capacity to safely manage the complexity of nursing work in key to quality care in a time of diminishing resources,” ( Dolansky, 2013). “It is vital for schools of nursing to meet the needs of today's complex health care systems by including principles of quality and safety throughout the curriculum,” (Lewis, 2016). Within the KSAs are six main categories; patient-centered care, teamwork

In the article “What Do Nurses Really Do?”, Suzanne Gordon explores what nurses truly do. She concludes that nurses “save lives, prevent complications, prevent suffering, and save money” (Gordon 2006). Nurses provide care for their patients in the physical and emotional sense. Emotionally caring for a patient and being sensitive to his or her needs result from interacting with patients while performing the skills and using the knowledge that nurses learned in school. Nurses grow in their skills, knowledge, and attitudes through practice. Quality and safety education for nursing incorporates competencies that all nurses must use in their practice. These nursing competencies include evidence-based nursing practice, quality improvement, safety, teamwork and collaboration, patient-centered care, and informatics.

The Salary of an RN is about $36.94 per hour, but the work schedule of a nurse is crazy. Nurses never really get a break especially floor nurses. I have talked to quite a few nurses and they have said that since you don’t truly get a break you tend to gain weight do to constantly eating/snacking. The education needed to be a Registered Nurse would be a Bachelor Degree which is a four year process. To be a Registered Nurse or RN you will need no training. On the job you will administer basic health care which is a temporary health coverage program for low-income, uninsured United States citizens or permanent legal residents of Contra Costa County. As an RN you will being giving patients intravenous medications. An intravenous

The overall goal through all phases of The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) is to address the challenge of preparing future nurses with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to continuously improve the quality and safety of the healthcare systems in which they work. In order to accomplish this goal, six competencies were defined. These competencies from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) are patient centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, informatics and safety. Over a decade has passed since the Institute of Medicine’s reports on the need to improve the American healthcare system. The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses

Over time the health care industry has become more complex. Health care is rapidly evolving and continuing to complicate our delivery of care, which in turn has the same effect on quality of care. This steady evolution and change results in nursing shortages and an increase in the prevalence of errors being made. In hopes of preventing these errors and creating safe and high quality patient care, with the focus on new and improved ways of thinking, The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) initiative was developed. The QSEN focuses on the following competencies: patient-centered care, quality improvement, safety, and teamwork and collaboration. Their initiatives work to prepare and develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are necessary to make improvements in the quality and safety of health care systems (Qsen.org, 2014).

Like most other professions, nursing is controlled by government regulatory agencies and professional organizations. For instance, boards of nursing in various states are the government entities mandated to regulate nursing at the state level, while the American Nurses Association is a professional organization that governs nursing at the nation level. Regulatory agencies and professional organizations are guided by the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

Dolansky and Moore (2013) argued that the development and integration of QSEN competencies into nursing education had not have the outcomes intended. They stated "over a decade has passed since the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System" and national initiatives to improve quality, especially QSEN, have been futile in significantly improving quality and safety. "QSEN is a national movement that guides nurses to redesign the "what and how ' they deliver nursing care so that they can ensure high-quality, safe care" (Dolansky & More 2013).

QSEN is quality and safety in nursing. It is designed for nurses to continuously improve the quality and safety of patient care delivered. Interdisciplinary friction can threaten the delivery of quality patient care. In addition to ineffective communication and teamwork which can be very detrimental and result in adverse effects in patient care. These adverse reactions lead to the need for incident reports to be filled out, however, some reports end up incomplete or overlooked. The implementation of new skills can change the outcomes in patient safety.

The national league for nurses defines critical thinking in the nursing process as “a discipline specific, reflective reasoning process that guides a nurse in generating, implementing, and evaluating approaches for dealing with client care and professional concerns” (Kozier, 2008). This definition is imperative to help a nursing student learn how to think in terms of nursing care. Nursing students must achieve a comprehensive understanding of critical thinking in order to understand the nursing process. The purpose for this paper is for nursing students to learn how to use the nursing process, how to properly document their findings and assessments, and correctly implement APA formatting in a formal paper.

The five core competencies identified by IOM and the sixth added by QSEN, safety, are believed to be necessary to improve both quality and safety of the healthcare system within which nurses work (Multimethod teaching). The six core competencies outlined are patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, informatics, and safety (Diffusing Qsen). While all competencies are significant to the healthcare system, patient centered care is vital to positive patient outcomes and focuses on the patient’s perspective within the healthcare system.

The nurse manager I selected to interview is a Baccalaureate degree nurse and has attended several in-house training sessions related to her position within the hospital. She attended Lenoir Rhyne University to obtain her BSN and has been employed with the institution for 13 years and has been in nursing for nearly 20 years. She is currently certified as a Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN) and is also a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. The Hospital that she is employed with is a private hospital she manages a 15 bed emergency department and 6 bed express care facility, which also holds several involuntary commitments for several hours at a time waiting on placement.

The orientation process for new hires lasts six weeks. The new nurse attends nursing orientation for one week and then is assign a preceptor on the unit for each shift. The DPCS introduces the new employee to their preceptor. This nurse works three weeks on the day shift, one week on the evening shift and one week on the night shift working with both medically acute rehabilitation patients and surgical patients. Nurses receive extra days of their orientation with patients that the nurse has limited clinical experience such as a nurse with postoperative experience will work more with the medically acute rehabilitation patients to practice new skills. For new graduates their orientation is individualize and can last from 8-16 weeks.

So many people say saving lives takes hard work and extensive training, but are they really dedicated to do the work it takes. Medical school takes hard work and so much time to do the work as being a nurse. Being a nurse you have to have the heart and the great skills to be the best care giver you could be to a patient in need for help. Not only are you impacting someone else life but you are also impacting yourself with the great benefits they offer you, the way the patients acknowledge you by your hard work. Nurses make sure they have the care they need. Nursing is one of the most longest working shifts in the medical field you will ever experience.