QSEN (Quality and Safety Education in Nursing) is an initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to incorporate fundamentals of patient safety and quality improvement into nursing education starting with nursing schools. It provides resources like lists of knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) that nurses should have regarding quality and safety. Nursing faculty can use teaching strategies and presentations from QSEN's website to incorporate these topics into clinical training for students. This helps ensure the next generation of nurses is educated on quality improvement and patient safety.

1. QSEN:
Not just for
nursing school

2. What is QSEN?
● Quality and Safety Education in Nursing
● Initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation to indoctrinate the fundamentals of
patient safety and quality improvement into the
professional practice of all nurses, starting with
nursing schools
● Has been around since 2005 and continues to
grow

3. How does it work (usually)?
● QSEN initiative has a most helpful website at
http://www.qsen.org
● Website contains a list of KSAs (knowledge, skills,
attitudes) that all nurses should possess in regards to
quality and safety
● Teaching strategies, faculty resources, and
presentations from conferences are freely available
on this webiste
● The idea is that nursing faculty will incorporate these
resources into their students' clinical training

4. Why should I care?
● This is the way that our specialty (quality
improvement and patient safety) is being taught
to the future generation of nurses
● The tools and resources coming out of the
QSEN project are perfect for staff development
and inservice training
● Since quality and safety can be boring parts of
orientation, it's helpful to have more tools to
help get everybody on board

5. Competencies in Quality and Safety
● Based on the Institute for Medicine (IOM – the
folks that wrote 'To Err is Human')
competencies for nursing:
● Patient-centered care
● Teamwork and collaboration
● Evidence based practice
● Quality improvement
● Safety
● Informatics

6. Patient-centered care
● Definition: “Recognize the patient or designee
as the source of control and full partner in
providing compassionate and coordinated care
based on respect for patient's preferences,
values, and needs”
● Resources related to patient-centered care can
be found at
http://www.qsen.org/definition.php?id=1.

7. 2 tools for patient-centered care
● Clinical assessment tool is a checksheet of
what the nurse should assess at the beginning
of the shift for each patient. This tool could be
modified to incorporate Joint Commission
standards:
http://www.qsen.org/teachingstrategy.php?id=72
● Role playing in health literacy provides
exercises on improving communication skills:
http://www.qsen.org/teachingstrategy.php?id=81

8. Teamwork and collaboration
● Definition: “Function effectively within nursing
and inter-professional teams, fostering open
communication, mutual respect, and shared
decision making to achieve quality patient care”
● Resources related to teamwork and
collaboration can be found at
http://www.qsen.org/definition.php?id=2

9. 2 tools for teamwork/collaboration
● This exercise was designed to teach effective
nurse-physician communication:
http://www.qsen.org/teachingstrategy.php?id=50
● This case study provides a good example of
how discussion can be used to guide
participants towards the effective use of
collaboration:
http://www.qsen.org/teachingstrategy.php?id=56

10. Evidence-based practice
● Definition: “Integrate best current evidence with
clinical expertise and patient/family preferences
and values for delivery of optimal health care”
● Resources related to evidence-based practice
can be found at
http://www.qsen.org/definition.php?id=3

11. 2 tools for evidence-based practice
● This clinical activity teaches the use of
intervention bundling:
http://www.qsen.org/teachingstrategy.php?id=183
● This activity addresses the clinical use of
evidence:
http://www.qsen.org/teachingstrategy.php?id=55

12. Quality Improvement
● Definition: "Use data to monitor the outcomes
of care processes and use improvement
methods to design and test changes to
continuously improve the quality and safety of
health care systems'
● Resources related to quality improvement can
be found at
http://www.qsen.org/definition.php?id=4

13. 2 tools for quality improvement
● This activity shows how flow charting can be
used to improve clinical care:
http://www.qsen.org/teachingstrategy.php?id=51
● This powerpoint models key content for
introducing quality and safety:
http://www.qsen.org/teachingstrategy.php?id=75

14. Safety
● Definition: "Minimizes risk of harm to patients
and providers through both system
effectiveness and individual performance"
● Resources related to safety can be found at
http://www.qsen.org/definition.php?id=5

15. 2 tools for safety
● A resource on discussion of adverse events can
be found at
http://www.qsen.org/teachingstrategy.php?id=83
● A resource for using fishbone analyses can be
found at
http://www.qsen.org/teachingstrategy.php?id=171

16. Informatics
● Definition: "Use information and technology to
communicate, manage knowledge, mitigate
error, and support decision making”
● Resources related to informatics can be found
at http://www.qsen.org/definition.php?id=6
● Instead of borrowing other's resources,
consider designing your own – utilizing your
organization's own EMR

17. Success stories of QSEN for
orientation
● Community Memorial Health Systems in
Ventura, California:
http://www.qsen.org/docs/2012_conference/QSEN_
● Nurse residency program at Creighton
University Medical Center:
http://www.qsen.org/docs/2012_conference/QSEN_

18. Questions?
Send an email to
Matthew.ryan.sevier@gmail.com