A national study to explore faculty perceptions regarding the current state of integration of Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) competencies in prelicensure nursing programs was conducted by the National League for Nursing (NLN) in January 2017 in partnership with Drs. Gerry Altmiller and Gail Armstrong. (See below.) The full results of the study were published in a special, open-access supplement of Nurse Educator in September/October 2017 (Vol. 42, Issue 5S). The 19-question survey was completed by 2,037 nurse educators from all program types. The study sought to assess whether QSEN competencies are being taught in prelicensure programs in US schools of nursing, the extent of faculty development to understand and use the QSEN competencies, and the degree of curriculum integration within schools of nursing.
Results indicated that, although substantial progress had been made to integrate the QSEN competencies in the 12 years since the development of the QSEN Collaboration, significant needs remain for faculty development and support.
* The competencies of patient-centered care, evidence-based practice, safety, and teamwork and collaboration were reported to be well represented in curricula; the competencies of quality improvement and informatics were less evident.
* Fundamental and medical-surgical courses were reported to have the largest integration of QSEN competencies, with a concerning lack of QSEN content in research and public health nursing courses.
* There were wide disparities in the preparation of faculty to teach QSEN competencies; some schools reported that over 80 percent of faculty had received formal training, whereas others indicated that fewer than 20 percent attended QSEN programming.
The need for faculty training, education, and development, as well as educational materials to successfully implement QSEN into the nursing prelicensure curricula, were clearly evident. A clear gap in the implementation of the QSEN competencies was the need for evaluation methods. Measurement strategies cited by participants included clinical evaluation instruments and course learning objectives. However, many participants indicated that their programs did not evaluate student understanding and the integration of the QSEN competencies in their curricula.
Results also provided insight into barriers experienced by faculty to integrate QSEN into prelicensure nursing programs. The two leading barriers identified were the need for teaching strategies to better infuse QSEN into the course of study and more time to learn about the QSEN competencies.
This national study offers crucial insight into the progress that has been made regarding the integration of quality and safety education in nursing curricula while providing evidence for significant existing gaps and data to guide future work. Increased integration of the QSEN competencies of quality improvement and informatics in nursing education programs is essential as graduate nurses bring these skills to the work environment. The need to provide faculty release time for continuing education, with easily accessible and standardized approaches in how to integrate the QSEN competencies, is also apparent.
Survey respondents called for an increased national focus on the imperative to integrate QSEN competencies into curricula through national accreditation and professional organization programming. To address this national imperative, the NLN is working with Drs. Altmiller and Armstrong to develop online courses that will be available to national faculty in 2018. There is also a continuing need for increased financial support for faculty development and education.
Finally, a significant finding from the national survey is that faculty want ongoing support to use the QSEN competencies for curriculum planning and evaluation. The result of this work will be the integration of QSEN competencies across the curriculum with an equal distribution among all courses. The full study, along with articles to support ongoing integration of QSEN competencies and examples of QSEN integration strategies, is available at http://journals.lww.com/nurseeducatoronline/Fulltext/2017/09001/2017_National_Qu.