About QSEN
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.
QSEN has been funded since its inception in October, 2005, by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Phases I and II were led by Linda Cronenwett and Gwen Sherwood at UNC-Chapel Hill and a national advisory board and distinguished faculty. They pursued strategies to build will and develop and pilot curricular approaches to assure that future nursing graduates develop competencies in patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics.
In 2009-12, QSEN: Phase III will be conducted through two grants (to UNC-Chapel Hill: L. Cronenwett and to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing: G. Bednash). Phase III goals are to:
- Promote continued innovation in the development and evaluation of methods to elicit and assess student learning of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of the six IOM/QSEN competencies and the widespread sharing of those innovations;
- Develop the faculty expertise necessary to assist the learning and assessment of achievement of quality and safety competencies in all types of nursing programs;
- Create mechanisms to sustain the will to change among all programs through the content of textbooks, accreditation and certification standards, licensure exams and continued competence requirements.
Faculty development will be supported with curricular resources developed and disseminated through regional conferences, a QSEN Speaker’s Bureau, QSEN National Forums, web-based modules, and the QSEN website: www.qsen.org. In addition, QSEN will partner with the VA Quality Scholars Program to support nursing pre- and post-doctoral students in an inter-professional program of training in quality improvement and safety.
The QSEN Phase III Steering Committee members are:
| Linda Cronenwett, PhD, RN, FAAN UNC-Chapel Hill |
Geraldine P. Bednash, PhD, RN, FAAN American Association of Colleges of Nursing |
| Gwen Sherwood, PhD, RN, FAAN UNC-Chapel Hill |
Jane Barnsteiner, PhD, RN, FAAN University of Pennsylvania |
| Pamela Ironside, PhD, RN, FAAN Indiana University |
Joanne Disch, PhD, RN, FAAN University of Minnesota |
| Shirley Moore, PhD, RN, FAAN Case Western Reserve University |
Jean Johnson, PhD, RN, FAAN George Washington University |