Quality & Safety Education in Nursing

Quality and safety education in nursing provides nurses additional skills, abilities, knowledge and attitudes to constantly improve heath care safety and quality. The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) project was launched with a $590,000 grant in 2005.

QSEN Project

• A grant was used to evaluate and enhance nursing education.

  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the QSEN project in the Hill School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The initial grant was used for evaluating and enhancing nursing curriculum involving safety and nursing issues.

QSEN Phase I

• QSEN Project defined six competencies for health care quality and safety.

  QSEN Project Phase I defined six competencies crucial to health care quality and safety, including patient-centered care giving, collaboration, teamwork, quality improvement, evidence-based practice and safety.

QSEN Phase II

• Participating nursing schools incorporated the six competencies into their curriculum.

  With grant money to support them, 15 participating nursing schools integrated the six competencies into their curriculum during QSEN Phase II. Courses were refined and innovative teaching was infused into clinical, lab and classroom settings. QSEN concepts were incorporated into faculty development classes, and partner health care organizations integrated QSEN into clinical training. Moreover, continuing education courses for nurses included QSEN competencies.

QSEN Phase III

• QSEN competencies have been injected into textbooks, licensing exams and other areas.

  QSEN's third phase further developed ways for student assessment and aided faculty experts to spread QSEN throughout nursing education. In addition, ways to inject QSEN competencies into textbooks, licensing exams, certification and accreditation requirements and continuing education standards were formulated.