"Quality and Safety Education for Nurses" is re-funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Principal Investigator Linda Cronenwett received $1,094,477 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to fund Phase II of the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) project. The award will enable Cronenwett and project co-investigator Gwen Sherwood to continue work on Phase I that has been in progress since October, 2005. The long-range goal of QSEN is to reshape professional identity formation in nursing to include commitment to quality and safety competencies recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). To date, QSEN faculty have defined quality and safety competencies for nursing and proposed targets for the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be developed in nursing pre-licensure programs for each competency: patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics. They also completed a national survey of baccalaureate program leaders and a state survey of associate degree educators to assess beliefs about the extent to which the competencies are included in current curricula, the level of satisfaction with student competency achievement, and the level of faculty expertise in teaching the competencies. A website - www.qsen.org - will be launched in April, 2007, to feature teaching strategies and resources.

In Phase II, QSEN will partner with representatives of organizations that represent advanced practice nurses to draft proposed knowledge, skills, and attitude targets for graduate education. Phase II also includes work with 15 pilot schools who commit to active engagement in curricular change to incorporate quality and safety competencies.