Medication Safety: QSEN (Quality And Safety Education For Nurses) (Research Paper Sample)

QSEN (Quality and Safety Education for Nurses) Student Name Bachelor of Science in nursing Date Abstract Over the years, there has been consistent efforts and measures put in place in the American healthcare system to ensure that high-quality services are offered. However, minimal improvements and progress has been made so far. Therefore, Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) was initiated to facilitate the process of integrating quality and safety competencies into nursing education. Notably, nurses are subjected to various challenges on their day to day activities of trying to ensure that patients are attended to, they get the best medication and above all their recovery is facilitated. Some of the challenges include, hospital acquired infections, medication safety, pain management as well as individual-focused health-care. Nevertheless, this study will focus on individual-focused healthcare and establish how the challenge is a critical aspect in the application of the six QSEN competencies. 1 Introduction QSEN (Quality and Safety Education for Nurses) is an initiative that was started as a result of the need to improve the safety and quality of healthcare offered in various medical facilities in the United States. QSEN formation can be traced back in the year 2005 when leaders from various schools of nursing came together in an effort of trying to ensure that the welfare of the patients is prioritized through high-quality services (Cronenwett, Sherwood & Gelmon, 2009). The first phase of QSEN was funded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation followed by other three phases in the subsequent years. QSEN has played a substantial role in the healthcare education by creating the six competencies, they include, Patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics (Cronenwett et al 2009). As much as QSEN competencies have spearheaded safety and quality in nursing education, it is predominantly practiced at a personal level. Nurses are having challenges in providing system care. The effect of QSEN competencies in improving quality and safety in healthcare system can only be achieved if nurses integrate them both at the individual level as well as at the system level. There is need for them to shift from individual focused health care to population-focused health care through system thinking. The research, therefore, will primarily concentrate on establishing how individual health care is a challenge to the nurses as they go carry out their day to day activities (Cronenwett et al 2009). 2. Review of Literature The efficiency, competence and high levels portrayed by nurses in their day to day work is determined by the structures and processes of the healthcare systems. The review of literature will identify the studies conducted by various scholars together with their findings as far as individual healthcare is concerned. a) Nursing problem According to Sherwood & Barnsteiner (2012), nurses do operate in a multifunctional, multilevel and complex environment. Ordinarily, most of them have concentrated more on individual care of patients rather than adopting a population focused health care approach. Offering individual-based health care limits their ability to identify, understand and analyze the interactions and interdependencies in a given set of components which are designed for a particular purpose. Equally important, individual healthcare, hinders nurses from evaluating and understanding the manner in which complex components of a health care system influences the health of an individual patient. A population healthcare system entails the use of similar treatment guidelines or recommendations to offer medical services to a particular population with a specific illness, disease or injury. Therefore a greater thinking and effective application of system skills will play a significant role in mitigating errors in their practice and improve their priority setting and delegation. It also facilitates decision-making and problem-solving processes, eliminating inequalities of a given group of people as well as improving the quality of their services and safety of patients. b) Nursing practice A clinical environment is the most suitable place where nurses and medical practitioners can incorporate Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) competencies into their practice. This helps in shifting their attention from an individual-focused health care provision to a population-focused health care. * Patient-centered care According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2013), nurses and other medical practitioners offering individual-focused healthcare, concentrated and emphasize on documenting the presence as well as the extent of the pain of their patients. However, for them to improve the practice, they need to use a population focused health care approach through the system thinking (World Health Organization, 2014). Nurses should use common definitions, terms as well as rating scales in documenting the various ailments their patients might be diagnosed with. Thereafter, the nurses can identify pain management plans which are appropriate to their patients, families as well as other healthcare professionals. Lastly, the will then engage medical record reviews on patient’s management documentation as a unit. By doing so, quality and safety will be achieved in American healthcare system through the use of patient- centered care to achieve the aim of QSEN competencies (World Health Organization, 2014). * Evidence-based practice Also, individual focused healthcare can be improved by nurses using evidence-based practice which is one of the QSEN competencies. According to Houser & Oman, (2011), the evidence-based practice involves a differentiation of a clinical opinion from that of research and evidence summaries. However, for nurses to use the QSEN competency and attain a population focused health care, they need to brainstorm and discuss that particular evidence with other medical practitioners or fellow nurses at the workplace. Also, they need to question the justification for routine care approaches which are not evidence-based when attending to their patients. Moreover, the nurses also ought to actively take part in writing population-based standards of practice that have a concrete basis. Doing so will substantially improve the quality of medical services offered to the patients thus promoting their safety (Houser & Oman, 2011). * Teamwork and collaboration This QSEN competency is essential in ensuring that the nurses work as a unit to make their work easier and enhance patient care. On individual focused healthcare, which is a challenge facing medical practitioners, the nurses’ work on ensuring that their patients are ready to be discharged from the medical facilities with the right prescriptions. However, for high-quality services and safety to be attained, it is very crucial for them to have a system kind of approach hence able to focus on a greater number of patients. To do so, they need to formulate a discharge plan for their patients, parents as well as other medical practitioners (Cronenwett et al 2009). Apart from that, they should also share and exchange ideas with their colleagues to improve services offered to patients. Equally important, the nurses should participate in bringing substantial progress to the discharge process through a series of team meetings. Notably, the meetings are meant to structure a communication plan for the period that the patients are going to be admitted to the hospital. Teamwork and collaboration on a population focused health care approach results to high-quality services as well as enhancing the safety and well-being of the clients. (iv) Safety It is also one of the six QSEN competencies and it aims at minimizing the risks that patients and healthcare providers might be exposed to in their day to day work (In Kelly, In Vottero & In Christie-McAuliffe, 2014). Remarkably, little progress has been made so far in improving the quality of healthcare and safety of patients in most medical facilities within the United States. However, that can be improved if the nurses focus on population-focused health care as opposed to individual health care. The risk of harm can be minimized through system effectiveness and embracing a more wide scope in attending to patients (In Kelly et al 2014).Therefore, instead of nurses encouraging only their patients to clean their hands at the right time, they can get all patients together with their families to participate in the hand washing campaign so that they minimize the risks of infection. Also, the nurses can observe hand washing techniques used by other nurses, evaluate their effectiveness and use them when attending to patients. Finally, nurses should study the trends of hand washing in their respective units, create a cause and effect summary on the reasons as to why nurses do not actively engage in encouraging their patients to wash hands. This will improve the quality of services offered and safety of patients because the entire system unit is used as a benchmark to find a solution to the problem. Focusing on an individual patient won't be effective hence the reason as to why nurses need to embrace a system thinking, they practice a population-focused health care for improved and quality services hence achieving the aims of QSEN competencies (In Kelly et al 2014). (v) Quality improvement This QSEN competency ensures that nurses monitor and take care of their central lines using evidence-based practice. Additionally, Quality Improvement seeks to integrate values for delivering optimal health care, the preferences of the patient or family with the best current evidence and clinical expertise (Sherwood & Barnsteiner, 2012).Therefore, for the nurses to improve the quality and safety of healthcare of...