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Quality and Safety Education For Nurses Competencies

This document discusses three Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) competencies - safety, informatics, and patient-centered care. It describes how safety involves minimizing harm through performance and systems, and preventing needlestick injuries is an aspect of safety for nurses. Informatics involves using technology and information to support decision making. Patient-centered care recognizes the patient as the source of control and values their needs and preferences in providing coordinated care.

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Sammy Chege
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200 views5 pages

Quality and Safety Education For Nurses Competencies

This document discusses three Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) competencies - safety, informatics, and patient-centered care. It describes how safety involves minimizing harm through performance and systems, and preventing needlestick injuries is an aspect of safety for nurses. Informatics involves using technology and information to support decision making. Patient-centered care recognizes the patient as the source of control and values their needs and preferences in providing coordinated care.

Uploaded by

Sammy Chege
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Running head: QUALITY AND SAFETY EDUCATION FOR NURSES COMPETENCIES

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses Competencies

Name

Course

Institution

Date
QUALITY AND SAFETY EDUCATION FOR NURSES COMPETENCIES 2

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses Competencies

Healthcare providers are mandated to provide not only safe but also quality care to their

patients with the primary goal of enhancing health and health outcomes in the event of a disease

or injury. Over a decade, the Institute of Medicine released a report on “To Err is Human”

turning healthcare professionals’ attention to improving health care outcomes. In 2005, the

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) initiative was formed by the nursing leaders to

respond to the IOM call of improving quality of care. The QSEN consist of six competencies,

patient-centered care, evidence-based practice, safety, informatics, and teamwork and

collaboration (Sherwood & Barnsteiner, 2017). The paper describes safety, informatics, and

patient-centered care as the three most important QSEN competencies.

Safety

Safety as a QSEN competency involves minimizing the risk of harm to provider and

patients through individual performance and system effectiveness (Sherwood & Barnsteiner,

2017). Injury prevention is one area of enhancing safety in the healthcare settings and preventing

needle stick injuries is one aspect of enhancing safety for nurses. High-risk injuries from

contaminated sharps pose an unparalleled risk to nurses including a risk of infectious diseases

such as hepatitis C, Ebola, HIV, and measles (Hyman, 2015). According to the article, 40.1% of

all sharps injuries in the healthcare facilities happen to nurses with 54% of them being in the

patient rooms. To address the issue of safety, selecting safer devices such as safety-engineered

syringes, lancets, and blood collection devices is essential as it improves the safety of the nurses

while caring for their patients. Additionally, Hyman (2015) indicate that nurses need to adopt

safer practices such as stop recapping. All these strategies as has been described in the article are

associated with the nurse and patient safety during care delivery.
QUALITY AND SAFETY EDUCATION FOR NURSES COMPETENCIES 3

Informatics

For nurses to deliver quality and safe care, nurses need to utilize well-crafted information

to base their decisions for care on. Informatics, as a QSEN competency involves the use of

technology and information to manage knowledge, communicate, mitigate mistakes, and support

decision making. The article by Smith, Kolb, and Barton (2015) describes the promotion of a

healthy lifestyle among school-going children. Due to the school funding crisis in Philadelphia,

more than 25% layoffs occurred leaving up to 80% of children not receiving state-mandated

health screening with no fulltime school nurses. Through a three-year prospective study, data

was collected for fourth-grade students through fifth and sixth grade on their weight, height,

waist, and other quantitative information (Smith, Kolb, & Barton, 2015). Based on the study

findings, CHOP hired and trained a certified school nurse through the support of the IBC

Foundation to serve as a Healthy Futures program. The decision was to hire the availability of

information motivated a nurse.

Patient-Centered Care

Patient-centered care is care that is primarily focused on a specific patient or patient

population. Patient-centered care recognizes the patient as the source of control and full partner

in the provision of coordinated and compassionate care that values the patient’s needs and

preferences (Sherwood & Barnsteiner, 2017). The article by Phillips-Burkhart (2016) focuses on

the frailty syndrome, a condition that is associated with old age. By comparing two patients, Fran

Covington, and Myra Wilson both aged 82, the article indicates the difference in frailty

syndrome among the two. This indicates while a condition may be associated with a given age,

care for different patients should be provided differently. While the assessment, screening, and

identification of conditions may be similar, Phillips-Burkhart (2016) indicate that the treatment
QUALITY AND SAFETY EDUCATION FOR NURSES COMPETENCIES 4

and recommendations for clinical practice for the patients will vary. Patient-centered care

ensures that care is specifically focused on a specific patient.

Conclusion

While there are many QSEN competencies, the paper has discussed safety, informatics,

and patient-centered care as inherent in the three articles. While these articles have different

competencies, only these three were discussed due to their significance in practice. Healthcare

providers must always strive to apply these competencies in practice to improve the health and

wellbeing of the patients throughout their lifespan.


QUALITY AND SAFETY EDUCATION FOR NURSES COMPETENCIES 5

References

Hyman, W. (2015). Preventing needlestick and sharps injuries. 10(9). Retrieved from

https://www.americannursetoday.com/preventing-needlestick-sharps-injuries/

Phillips-Burkhart, K. (2016). Frailty syndrome: A weakly addressed problem. American Nurse

Today. 11 (7). Retrieved from https://www.americannursetoday.com/frailty-syndrome-

weakly-addressed-problem/

Sherwood, G., & Barnsteiner, J. (Eds.). (2017). Quality and safety in nursing: A competency

approach to improving outcomes. John Wiley & Sons.

Smith, A., Kolb, S., & Barton, S. (2015). Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia partners with

schools to promote healthy lifestyles. American Nurses Today. 10(9). Retrieved from

https://www.americannursetoday.com/childrens-hospital-philadelphia-partners-schools/

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