Educate, excite, engage

QSEN in clinical

Background

Using the competencies found in the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN—www.qsen.org) initiative is an excellent strategy to develop learning activities for clinical learning experiences. These competency sets (prelicensure and graduate) address key areas of practice that apply to all professional nurses at some level. Bringing these competencies to life during clinical can help the student develop habits for professional growth.

The QSEN initiative is founded in six global

Patient-centered Care

Patient-centered care competencies guides the nurse (nursing student) in partnership with the client. As the nurse seeks to improve outcomes, emphasis is placed on empowering the patient, including the family and improving personal communication on many levels. Competencies also touch on diversity and conflict resolution.

Teamwork and Collaboration

Recognizing the power of the team to positively impact patient care is vital to nursing.

A nurse's ability to function within a diverse team can directly impact patient outcomes. As teamwork and collaboration is considered, it is essential that they are able to manage conflict and demonstrate their value for all members of the health care team. Consider clinical activities that help students develop positive habits and attitudes in these areas. The following activity is one example.

Evidence-based Practice

In an effort to ensure that students are integrating evidence-based practice into the clinical experience, they need to develop an appreciation for the impact it can have on patient outcomes. Developing habits related to questioning rationale for nursing care and constantly reflecting on the efficacy of one's own practice is an essential theme in this QSEN competency.

Quality Improvement

As was noted in Bristol (2015), “Quality improvement (QI) is an area of the QSEN competencies where the student can truly move into the mindset of becoming a professional.” (pp. 200–203). In the clinical setting, faculty can encourage students to grow by encouraging them to continuously pursue opportunities for improving their client's health care experience. Essentially, students are given permission to start thinking like change agents.

Safety

QSEN addresses safety from the perspective of the nurse and the system. As learners consider this competency, they will encounter everything from knowledge management to communication and error prevention. In order to make this QSEN competency real for students, frequent reminders of safety concerns and concepts should be provided. Overtly discussing safety often is essential.

System Savers is an activity where the students start to think about the health care process from a systems perspective

Informatics

Integration of technology in health care has a primary goal of improving safety and quality. Ensuring that the students are making this connection during clinical will help them develop positive attitudes about the use of technology in health care. Sometimes developing this attitude requires overt discussions and bit of creativity as the use of technology is quite varied from agency to agency.

Electronic error event (E3) is an opportunity for the students to begin thinking of how errors are

Clinical Learning That Lasts

A couple of themes are evident in this discussion. First, do not hesitate to have students reviewing the actual QSEN competencies as a way of overtly exploring essential knowledge, skills and attitudes. Next, find and develop strategies that can be used during (not before or after) the clinical experience. The goal is to have the students appreciate the close proximity of these competencies to patient care. With debriefing, students can share in postconference. However, be careful to not have a

Conclusion

Using the QSEN competencies as a framework for clinical learning activities is an ideal strategy to promote higher order thinking and subsequent learning in students. The QSEN competencies are explored through knowledge, skills, and attitudes that should be addressed in clinical learning. As faculty develop learning activities, they should review the QSEN competencies and the Strategy Search found at http://qsen.org/teaching-strategies/strategy-search/. These free tools can bring success to the