QSEN Competencies

OVERVIEW

The overall goal for the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) project is to meet the challenge of preparing future nurses who will have the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs) necessary to continuously improve the quality and safety of the healthcare systems within which they work.

 

Using the Institute of Medicine1 competencies, QSEN faculty and a National Advisory Board 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. These definitions are shared in the six tables below as a resource to serve as guides to curricular development for formal academic programs, transition to practice and continuing education programs 2.

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For information on applying the competencies at a graduate level, see the Graduate KSAs page.

 

Note: This content is reprinted with permission from the “Quality and Safety Education for Nurses” article originally printed in Nursing Outlook Special Issue: Quality and Safety Education. For guidelines on use of this material, please read our terms and conditions.