Elsevier

Nursing Outlook

Volume 55, Issue 3, May–June 2007, Pages 132-137
Nursing Outlook

Article
Special issue: Quality and safety education
Current assessments of quality and safety education in nursing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2007.02.005Get rights and content

Concerns about the quality and safety of health care have changed practice expectations and created a mandate for change in the preparation of health care professionals. The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses project team conducted a survey to assess current levels of integration of quality and safety content in pre-licensure nursing curricula. Views of 195 nursing program leaders are presented, including information about satisfaction with faculty expertise and student competency development related to 6 domains that define quality and safety content: patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics. With competency definitions as the sole reference point, survey respondents indicated that quality and safety content was embedded in current curricula, and they were generally satisfied that students were developing the desired competencies. These data are contrasted with work reported elsewhere in this issue of Nursing Outlook1 and readers are invited to consider a variety of interpretations of the differences.

Section snippets

Review of the literature

The 2003 Institute of Medicine report on health professions education2 was published at the same time as an article by VanGeest and Cummins3 that reported an educational needs assessment conducted by the National Patient Safety Foundation. In 2 phases (focus groups followed by self-administered mail surveys), the authors explored physician and nurse experiences with error, their attitudes toward and knowledge of patient safety, and the nature of their informational and training needs.3

The nurse

Research questions

The purpose of the survey was to describe the current state of pre-licensure nursing education with respect to the 6 QSEN competencies.1 Specifically, the following questions were posed:

  • Does your pre-licensure curriculum contain content/experiences aimed at the development of the following competencies?

  • What pedagogical strategies are being used to teach content related to each competency?

  • What is the level of satisfaction with student competency development for each domain?

  • What is the perceived

Methods

This descriptive study was conducted using survey methods and an electronic survey management program.

Results

Responses were returned from 195 of 629 sample schools for an overall return rate of 31%. Return rates were 40% for ADN-only programs and 30% for programs that included baccalaureate and higher degrees. By self-report, 104 respondents (55%) were nursing program directors or chairpersons, 62 (33%) identified themselves as Deans (including Associate or Assistant Deans), and the remaining 22 respondents (12%) were faculty members (2 people identified as other and 5 skipped the question).

Discussion

The QSEN survey is the first report of the status of quality and safety education in pre-licensure nursing programs. At face value, the results reflect a relatively high rate of adoption of the QSEN core competencies across nursing curricula. For patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, and safety, high percentages of schools reported inclusion of the content using a variety of pedagogical strategies, high satisfaction with student competency development, and high levels of faculty

Summary

With QSEN competency definitions as the sole reference point, survey respondents reported that quality and safety content was embedded in current pre-licensure curricula and, in general, students were developing the desired competencies. There were opportunities for improvement in many schools, particularly with respect to informatics, quality improvement, and evidence-based practice. Access to curricular resources to improve quality and safety education was considered valuable, with access via

Elaine L. Smith is a Clinical Assistant Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

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  • Patient safety in practical nurses’ education: A cross-sectional survey of newly registered practical nurses in Canada

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    A central feature is the effectiveness of undergraduate programs in preparing students with the appropriate safety competencies. For example, nursing education has adopted a number of strategies and review processes to assess patient safety information in nursing curricula (Gregory et al., 2007; Murray et al., 2010; Smith et al., 2007). The use of a clinical assessment tool in undergraduate clinical nursing courses to enhance mastery of two key nursing competencies – safety and patient-centered care – has been reported with anecdotal evidence that students found the tool effective (Girdley et al., 2009).

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Elaine L. Smith is a Clinical Assistant Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

Linda Cronenwett is a Dean and Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

Gwen Sherwood is an Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Principal Investigator, Linda R. Cronenwett, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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