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Learning Objective #1: 1. The learner will be able to identify two strategies to include quality and safety content in simulation and clinical teaching.

Learning Objective #2: 2.The learner will be able to describe methods to assist learners to identify staff work-arounds and to discuss the effects on quality and safety.

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This presentation describes innovative approaches to integrate quality and safety content into existing nursing curricula and clinical practica. There is increased awareness and effort to enhance quality and safety content into patient-centered nursing curricula since the recent IOM reports. Nursing faculty are challenged to assist students in transferring content into their clinical experiences and to better prepare pre-licensure students to work in and communicate within transdisciplinary teams, employ evidence-based practice, apply quality improvement principles, and use informatics. Knowing that pre-licensure curricula is already full, one approach to including quality and safety content is integrating it into existing skill/simulation labs and clinical practica.

Specific quality and safety knowledge, skills and attitudes/behaviors that can be expected of nursing students will be described. Building on the competencies from the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses project, this presentation will describe teaching/learning strategies that can be used in skill/simulation labs and acute care clinical settings to introduce pre-licensure nursing students to quality and safety concepts.  The teaching/learning strategies described here do not require changes in course content but rather a shift in attention to the activities students are involved in during their simulation lab and acute care clinical experiences.

This presentation will discuss techniques faculty/staff can use such as patient simulators and unfolding cases to teach safe handoffs, communication using the Situation Background Assessment and Recommendation technique, and communication in transdisciplinary teams.

The clinical setting creates opportunities for students to gain a real world appreciation for such things as:  accessing to up-to-date information; identifying and responding to unsafe patient care situations; identifying nursing sensitive quality indicators; and communicating within transdisciplinary teams. Three exercises will be described for incorporating quality and safety content into a traditionally constructed clinical experience in acute care areas:  data mining and interpretation, web-site evaluation, and evaluation of staff work-arounds.