QSEN Profile - Gerry Altmiller

Gerry Altmiller, EdD, MSN, APRN

Assistant Professor
La Salle University
Philadelphia, PA

Program Experience

My teaching experience includes undergraduate and graduate education at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

QSEN Expertise

I have been a member of the QSEN collaborative for phase II and phase III.  To disseminate QSEN information and strategies, I developed and maintain a course management system (Blackboard) at La Salle University where QSEN teaching strategies and links to helpful web-sites are made available to all faculty for easy retrieval and download. I actively incorporated QSEN strategies into courses across the undergraduate curriculum.

Competency Expertise

My areas of expertise are patient safety techniques, Quality Improvement, and teamwork and collaboration.

Teaching Expertise

My teaching expertise is in the classroom and the clinical setting.  A large part of my responsibility is supervising the clinical experience for undergraduate students and supervising the adjunct faculty that teach them.  The adjunct faculty are oriented to QSEN KSAs and given tools to use in the clinical setting to support student development of KSAs.  I developed two unfolding cases studies that incorporate QSEN competencies (peri-op nursing and Pancreatitis) that are available on the QSEN web-site in the teaching strategies link.

Research Expertise

The focus of my research has been incivility in nursing education and lateral violence in the workplace.   The Joint Commission identified lateral violence in a sentinel alert as a patient safety threat so I have focused on improving inter-disciplinary communication as well as communication between nurses.

Publications and Presentations

Altmiller, G.  (2010).  Student perceptions of incivility in nursing education: Implications for educators.  Nursing Education Perspectives (accepted for publication; awaiting date)

Altmiller, G.  (2010).   Promoting safety by influencing new-to-practice nurses. Exemplar in Patti Rager Zuzelo’s The Clinical Nurse Specialist Handbook, 2^nd ed. 319-322.

Wolf, Z. R., Hicks, R. W., Altmiller, G., & Bicknell, P. (2009). Nursing student medication errors involving tubing and catheters: A descriptive study.  Nursing Education Today.  681-688.

Altmiller, G. & Gurten, L.  (2009). The moral dilemma of cultural competence.  Pennsylvania Nurse, 20-21

Wieland, D., Altmiller, G., Dorr, M., & Wolf, Z. R.  (2007)  Clinical  Transition of baccalaureate nursing students during preceptored, pregraduation practicums.  Nursing Education Perspectives, 28(6), 315-321.

Wolf, Z. R., Altmiller, G., & Bicknell, P. (2008) Development and testing of the Patient Safety Test: Current concepts. (research in progress)

Altmiller, G.  Teaching new RN graduates how to shield themselves from lateral violence.  (research in progress).