Paper
Friday, July 13, 2007
Building the Evidence: CQI for undergraduate community curriculum
Barbara J. Kruger, PhD, MPH, RN, School of Nursing, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL, USA
Continuous quality improvement (CQI) initiatives in health service delivery have a long history and nursing education programs, through national accreditation standards, also are expected to continually improve. Less frequently described in the literature, is how continuous quality improvement processes are blended with evidence-based practice methods and applied to curriculum refinement. We discuss the development and refinement of the University of North Florida, School of Nursing, Community Homebase Model which occurred over a period of years and resulted in an innovate approach towards teaching undergraduate community nursing students. Concepts from CQI were blended with program development and community organizing strategies to build the evidence through on-going integration of literature best practice with stakeholder data and analysis. Data from focus groups, regularly deployed surveys, student reflective journals, and service-learning projects collected from students, faculty, and community partners provided the evidence that was integrated into the plan, do, check, act iterative cycle of improvement. Empowering the key stakeholders as co-learning teams and encouraging experimentation and creativity helped to create a culture of quality and shared pride.