QSEN Safety Examples: Quality and Safety Education for Nurses

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses
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Quality and Safety Education for Nurses
Today, hospitals and other medical systems experience the highest levels of dedication, excellence and sophistication in service delivery ever known to man. The growing numbers of patients and the advancement of technological and research tools have led to the growth observed in the medical fraternity. One area that has experienced thorough streamlining and improvement is the competency of medical practitioners. Among the many strategies developed to bring about this, ‘Quality and safety education for Nurses’ commonly abbreviated as QSEN policy has been a major contributor. This paper aims at exploring the importance of QSEN policies in healthcare provision. The author achieves this by highlighting a scenario in which the application of the policies was needed. The concluding section gives recommendations as to what could be done to improve the QSEN project.
It is agreeable that the larger responsibility for patients lies on the nurses. Based on the definition, nursing is a word that describes an occupation, which renders services. Such services are important for the maintenance of the health of the people. It is worth noting that the nursing comprise prevention of illness, promotion of health in the larger society, and provision of care on patients in different locations among other services. Thus, proper training of nursing students proves to be of crucial importance in the reliability of hospitals and nursing homes as remedies for diseases. The QSEN curricula, developed in 2005 sought to prepare aspiring nurses to improve the quality and safety of the system with which they will work (Barnsteiner and Disch, 2012).
Expert selected to work on the project came up with six core competency areas to be incorporated in to the nursing syllabus. The competencies focus on building the nurses skills, knowledge and attitude around patient care, teamwork, continuous learning, safety and informatics. The implementation of the policy has been difficult, but it will be noted that most nursing schools have successfully incorporated the competencies in their curriculum. Each decision made by the nurse is centred on the safety and health of the patient. The nurse serves as a member of a larger system and thus utilizes and understands group dynamics and communication techniques. The sharing of information is essential in the handling of similar scenarios as well as in the improvement of patient care.
A Healthcare Scenario
A case study plays a great part in exploring an event that occurred in a given time. The scenario occurring helps learners understand the mistakes made during the event and gain knowledge on the best ways to combat the occurrence of such events in the future. It is worth examining a healthcare scenario in order to explore the subject from a broad point of view, as well as to show the application of the given competencies in the topic. In the execution of the policy, one hospital experienced an incident where a nurse accidentally gave an infant an adult-doze of a drug, the anticoagulant heparin, which brought about adverse reactions from the infant’s system. Rather than simply penalizing the nurse, the hospital management decided to review the incident so as to determine what led to the mistake. Soon, it was realized that the adult doses were stored in the same shelf, side by side as the infant doses. They also noted that both vials bore similar labels. Subsequently, the staff separated the two doses, as well as conversed with the drug manufacturer to see that the labels where differentiated (Barnsteiner, Barnsteiner and Sherwood, 2012).
This is one of the several incidences where QSEN has been important in the delivery of quality health care. It is seen that the six competencies featured from the dose administration to the final recommendations and conclusions. Firstly, it is possible that the nurse was not careful in administering the dose to the infant. Even though it is possible that the decision to administer the vial was based on the infant’s unique needs, the selection of the dose was based on the nurse’s reliance on memory, a contradiction of the expectations on patient safety. She ought to have followed a well written out checklist on what drug the infant needed.
Secondly, it is probable that the nurse’s ignorance on the difference between the two doses was based on a general lack of teamwork and collaboration. Withstanding, the decision by the management to review the mistake rather than penalize her would undoubtedly call for teamwork, as well as the sharing of information. Whereas the nurse would provide information as to what caused the reactions, other members would be utilized in retracing the mistake. The same would then be filed up for future reference in similar scenarios. Finally, the...