NR 451 Week 5: Core Competencies for Nurses Discussion

NR 451 Week 5: Core Competencies for Nurses Discussion

Explore the website for the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) initiative athttp://www.qsen.org (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. How can the QSEN competencies for nurses be implemented into your workplace or professional nursing setting? If you are not currently employed as a nurse, consider a previous work setting that would have benefited from implementation of the QSEN competencies.

A Sample Answer For the Assignment: NR 451 Week 5: Core Competencies for Nurses Discussion

The QSEN has six core competencies used in nursing to include: patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics. “Enhanced communication along with care coordination, patient integration, care quality, safety, and improving access are essential components that can actively integrate patients and their caretakers into the healthcare team”(Carr,2017,p.39).

As nurses we use these competencies within are practice, sometimes daily. Patient-centered care should be used daily within nursing practice. My practice setting is a nursing home, and it is all about the resident. At the nursing home we center everything on the residents including activities, meals, and even our lunch break. Team work is another aspect of competencies that is used daily. The nurses work together to achieve task that need to be done throughout the day, and coordinating care with the certified nursing assistances.

With my practice I use evidence based practice often as I am a wound care nurse. When starting this position I knew very little about wounds. This led me to seek more information on how to treat and manage wounds with evidence based practice. Quality improvement is another area that is being focused on by state. With the final rule quality improvement is a huge part of nursing home regulation, and is a topic I am looking more into at this time. It is a very complicated process.

Safety should be taken in every nursing practice every second of the day. We use call lights, locks on doors, alarms, and many other interventions to assure safety for out residents. Informatics is growing in healthcare. We use electronic medical records in our facility to document medication use. We also have reports that we can pull to show graphs of different area that we may need to look at.

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References

Carr, D. D. (2017). Motivational Interviewing Supports Patient Centered-Care and Communication. Journal OfThe New York State Nurses Association, 45(1), 39-43.

QSEN competencies. (2014). Definitions and pre-licensure KSAs. Retrieved from (http://qsen.org/competencies/pre-licensure-ksas/ (Links to an external site.)

The QSEN or Quality and Safety Education for Nurses can be implemented into the professional nursing

setting by taking the six core competencies, like patient centered care, which deals with the nursing profession working with patients and family members to help in a compassionate and caring way, to make sure the patients needs, values, and concerns are meet.

Teamwork and collaboration in the nursing profession is one of the biggest implementation that does need to work. Without teamwork the patient is the one that will be the loser in the end. When nurses collaborate together, to fix the problem that may arise, it will lead to the patients overall well-being. Evidence based practice is a core competency that nurse need to use because it is the most up to date clinical evidence in new technology or medical products that provides the patient with be best care that is being done in the medical field.

Quality Improvement is the new data and new improvements to the data that nurses can implement into the care and needs for the patient. Safety in the nursing profession in the number one lesson, we as nurses learned in school, and that is to do no harm. Nurses should always  to safe when implementing care for their patient and lastly, Informatics is the technology used and the information being placed into the computers. Nurses need to document, with the correct data and to minimize the errors, by using informatics in today’s society. Implementation of these six core competencies are all good for the nursing profession and their patients.

References;

American Nurses Association. (2015). Nursing: Scope and standards of practice. (3rd. ed.). Spring, MD: Author.

QSEN competencies. (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://qsen.org/competencies/ (Links to an external site.) pre- licensure- ksas/

These competencies for nurses are actually already implemented in my workplace. I work for a large organization, which strives to provide patient and family-centered care. They believe in holistic medicine and respect cultural and spiritual beliefs. Patients and family are encouraged to actively participate in the plan of care. We do bedside report in order to keep patients and families informed and familiar with the oncoming staff.

Teamwork and collaboration is seen in the daily work of nurses, physicians and clinical care partners. Nurses notify physicians when patients deteriorate and prepare for any anticipated procedures. They periodically communicate to ensure compliance and effectiveness of the care plan. Evidence Based Practice is implemented through the Unit Practice Council and other committees supported by the organization.

The chair for the committees meet with leaders to present possible projects. Staff is also encouraged to present ideas to educators or other members of the leadership team. The quality improvement and documentation nurses review documentation and other benchmarks and provide education and remediation of staff if necessary. They attend staff meetings and discuss our metrics and where there is opportunity for improvement.

Safety is everyone’s responsibility. Pharmacy double checks physician’s orders and nurses perform the final checks prior to medication administration. The lab checks that patient’s and proper identifiers on blood tubes prior to releasing results. The flow nurse makes sure that patients are safely moved throughout the department. Triage techs and nurses identifies patients who need rapid bed placement or immediate assistance. Some facilities use scanning of medications to improve safety.

I believe this would be a good practice for us to adopt. It provides an extra check and diminishes errors. I am not very familiar with the subject of informatics. The employees are not very involved or educated about the subject. We do use telehealth to communicate with neurologists during stroke alerts and use an electronic health record for documentation. In addition, the organization came up with an application that allows you to receive a medical screening that can help you obtain prescriptions for minor illnesses or refer you to an ER if needed.

According to the ANA, “nurses should achieve higher levels of education, while educational systems and other stakeholders should support seamless academic progression and include innovative ways for nursing students to achieve their degrees through online, virtual, simulated, and competency-based learning” (ANA, 2015). In my workplace, nurses have a set of yearly competencies that they must meet in order to be allowed to provide patient care.

There are many models that could be used to meet these competencies. Some are based on observation of daily work, discussion, through classes or training or based on self-study and completion of questions proving competence. The Institute of Medicine states that “all health professionals should be educated to deliver patient-centered care as members of an interdisciplinary team, emphasizing evidence-based practice, quality improvement approaches, and informatics” (Institute of Medicine, 2003).

The AHRQ website offers a wealth of information regarding quality tools and measures to improve patient care. One of the newest findings discussed in the website is the use of pharmacist-led medication therapy management. This is supposed to help patients with many chronic conditions better manage the medications they are taking. I think this is outstanding and could be extremely beneficial.

References:

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://innovations.ahrq.gov/

American Nurses Association. (2015). nursing: Scope and standards of practice (3rd ed.). Silver Spring, MD: Author.

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses. (2014). Competencies. Retrieved from: http://qsen.org/competencies/

Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on the Health Professions Education Summit; Greiner AC, Knebel E, editors. Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2003. Chapter 3, The Core Competencies Needed for Health Care Professionals. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221519/