competencies during the nursing program

competencies during the nursing program

#1 Quality Improvement Competencies-Boya- QSEN competencies are important for all nurses.  Exposing students to these competencies during the nursing program is a good idea.  Most of these competencies are already a part of the basic nursing curriculum.  Informatics and quality improvement are the two competencies that receive the least amount of introduction.  One concern I have is pushing students to look for ways to improve without having the experience of basic nursing knowledge, assessment skills and prioritization.  How do you improve something you don’t know how to do?  All six competencies are interconnected at some level.When I was a nursing student, quality improvement had no meaning for me.  As my nursing career grew, I was aware of many changes to the concept of quality improvement.  Throughout my nursing career patient safety, effective care and improving processes have always been high priority for me.  I just never gave it a name such as process improvement, utilization review or quality improvement; it was just all part of good nursing care.  The goal for quality improvement is to monitor patient outcomes using statistics for comparison to standards of care for different diseases, treatments and complications.

competencies during the nursing program

Any outcomes at the local facility that fall outside the standard of care are reviewed to determine root cause analysis, develop new processes, implement the new processes and evaluate the resulting outcomes. Nursing students may be able to participate in quality improvement at the lowest level.  Identifying improvements for giving and receiving shift report, organizing and prioritizing shift duties and assessing their preceptorships.  Many do this without thinking as they develop their nursing routines.  To evaluate for this competency, nursing students could be given the task of identifying a self-process that could be improved, develop a plan for a new process, implement the new process, evaluate the outcome results and then act upon the results to continue the new process or continue improving the process.  For example, the nursing student could develop a new process for how the student receives and gives report, prioritizes medications, treatments and assessments for the student’s assignments.  This would also assist the student in being self-aware and efficient.

Teamwork and Collaboration-Denise

#2 Teamwork and Collaboration-Denise Integrating QSEN should be encouraged when working in the medical field. Their competencies of patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics can help develop a competent nurse (QSEN Institute, 2020). I feel that an important QSEN competency is teamwork and collaboration. When a person is hospitalized, the estimated number of medical professionals they see during their stay ranges between 44 and 75 medical professionals (de Vos, Hamming, Marang-van de Mheen, 2018). Teamwork among the 44 to 75 people is essential to helping a patient regain their health. Nurses should feel comfortable talking with other team members about their patient’s health. Learning effective communication skills can be taught during nursing school. Nursing students can learn to facilitate communication. They can be taught when to speak up about their patient and to advocate for their patient’s needs. Nurses should also be taught how to handle conflict amongst team members. They should be taught the chain of command and what their resources are when there is a conflict. Further, if a conflict cannot be resolved, nurses should be aware of where to turn should the conflict continue. Nurses should also be able to expand the professional team to include areas of expertise when needed. Nurses should be taught to look outside the box and request for specialists when there is a question with care. Further, nurses should be taught their roles and responsibilities and when the practice is out of their scope of work, they should request additional help. Open communication can help relieve stress in the work field. Allowing and asking for help when a person is overwhelmed will allow nurses to work better together to accomplish their tasks. Finally, nurses should encourage other team members to openly communicate with other members of the health care profession. This can include doctors, nurses, supervisors, and patients. Communication and teamwork are essential when working with patients and their families. Open communication allows the entire team to know the goals of treatment, team assignments, and forms respect among team members.