SPECIAL SESSION: Innovations for Integrating Quality and Safety Competencies in Education and Practice: The QSEN Project

Description/Overview: Purpose: Quality and safety are global issues with staggering evidence of poor quality from all parts of the world. Numerous reports and regulations over the past 10 years spurred urgent transformation of health care systems to integrate quality and safety as part of every day work, resulting in a gap in nursing education for preparing nurses to work in systems with cultures of quality and safety. The session will explore integration of the QSEN competencies using innovative, interactive and reflective pedagogies. Background: The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) project (funded by RWJF) answered the Institute of Medicine (IOM) declaration that education is the bridge to improve quality. Through 3 phases, this award winning national project identified the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs) defining the 6 competencies required for health professionals to work in systems focused on quality and safety: patient centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence based care, quality improvement, safety, and informatics. Method: The session will explore the driving forces for a new mindset focused on quality and safety, describe the 3 phases of the QSEN project, provide an overview of the 6 competencies, and examine results of the Pilot School Learning Collaborative and a Delphi study. A series of interactive exercises will demonstrate application of the QSEN competencies using innovative, interactive, and reflective pedagogy including unfolding case studies, narrative pedgagoies, and small group work that can be used in classrooms, simuations, and post conference discussions. Learners can engage in critical reflection to analyze actions to help make sense of work, foster a spirit of inquiry, and assess ways to act differently in the future as they learn to “think like a nurse” in the progession of novice to expert.