Quality And Safety Education For Nurses

Mulloy, D. F., & Hughes, R. G. (2008). Patient safety & quality: an evidence-based handbook for nurses. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Retrieved from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2678/

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

The WGU nursing program helped me in developing my professional definition of quality and safety by enlightening my understanding of root cause analysis, and system failures. The IHI course was an eye opener in my understanding of quality improvement, and the processes required to enhance safety and quality improvement. The courses that really assisted me in my definition include, the Organizational Systems and Quality Leadership, the Leadership and Professional Image, and Professional Roles and Values; and the Evidence-Based Practice and Applied Nursing Research.

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 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).

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 purpose of this paper is to discuss how safety in the nursing profession affects the nursing education, nursing practice, and nursing research. Safety in the nursing profession means to minimize the risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performances (QSEN, 2014). Patient safety is a very important aspect in the profession of nursing. It is the nurse’s job to keep up to date with their patients and to make sure that protocol is being followed at all times. To maintain this strategy, the nurse must show proper knowledge of a nurse, skills of a nurse, and also a professional attitude.

The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) Institute developed six core competencies: patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics (Quality and Safety Education for Nurses Institute, 2017). At my facility, it is clearly evident that they have adopted these six core competencies to improve patient quality and safety. My facility created the Office of Patient Experience which supports care that is safe, of high quality and high value. Patient satisfaction is a top priority which is why our guiding principle is known as “Patients First”. Through teamwork and collaboration, we deliver care that is patient-centered by working together in multidisciplinary rounds on the inpatient units. Also, the nursing education department supports quality, safety and consistent nursing care through a database of policies and procedures developed using evidence-based research. Lastly, the nursing informatics department is working towards making our EPIC system more patient-centered. They are doing this by decreasing the redundancy in charting for the nursing staff and finding ways to improve processes which automate tasks. This in turn will reduce the time that the nursing staff spends with their computer and increase the time that the nursing staff can spend with their patients.

The Quality and Safety for Nurses (QSEN) project, developed in 2005 from recommendations made by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), addresses issues pertaining to how to better prepare future nurses with knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) to continue to improve the safety and quality of care provided by the healthcare organizations in which they work (Billings & Halstead, 2016; QSEN, n.d.). The mission of QSEN emphases the collaboration of all healthcare professionals focusing on education, practice, and scholarship to improve the healthcare system. With the partnerships of national nursing organizations and schools of nursing, QSEN has been developed from IOM reports and integrated into pre-licensure and graduate student’s

After reviewing the six Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) Competencies I can definitely see how implementing these skills into the medical field results in improved patient care. Examining this week’s reading assignments I selected practices/ strategies that met each individual competency and they are as follows:

Lyle-Edrosolo, G. & Waxman, K. (2016). Aligning Healthcare Safety and Quality Competencies: Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN), The Joint Commission, and American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet® Standards Crosswalk. Nurse Leader, 14(1), 70-75.

Errors pervade in our lives whether it is our home, in our workplace, or in our society. The effects of healthcare errors have impacted all our lives either directly or indirectly. Patient safety and quality care are at the core of healthcare system which strongly depends upon nurses. “To achieve goals in patient safety and quality, thereby improve healthcare, nurses must assume the leadership role. Nurses need to ensure that they and other healthcare providers center healthcare on patients and their families. Even though the quality and safety of healthcare is heavily influenced by the complex nature

In today’s health care system, “quality” and “safety” are one in the same when it comes to patient care. As Florence Nightingale described our profession long ago, it takes work and vigilance to ensure we are doing the best we can to care for our patients. (Mitchell, 2008)