The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing has been tapped by the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) Institute to be part of a national effort to increase quality and safety education for nurses at all levels through the development of regional educational outreach hubs.
The Collaborative’s objective is to train nurse educators, practicing nurses, and nurse leaders on the importance of instilling quality and safety values within today’s nursing and health care workforce.
Rachel Z. Booth Endowed Chair
in Nursing and Professor Patrician A. Patrician, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Associate Professor Rebecca S. Miltner, PhD, RN, CNL, NEA-BC, are leading the new initiative at UAB, called the Deep South QSEN Regional Collaborative.
“We know there is much as a School we can impart, as leaders in quality and safety education and research, to the many health care professionals in Alabama and the Deep South about QSEN and the importance of being proficient in quality and safety principles,” Patrician said. “This includes addressing the challenges of preparing all nurses with the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to become leaders in interprofessional health care teams to help continuously improve the quality and safety of the health care systems in which they practice.”
This educational outreach is based on six main QSEN competencies, including evidence-based practice, quality improvement, patient safety, patient-centered care, informatics, and teamwork and collaboration.
“When you ask nurses about quality and safety, they will often say ‘That’s everything we do,’” Patrician said. “But if you ask them about changes in practice based on evidence they’ve seen, research literature they have read, or patient-care issues they have discussed with their colleagues, you find that they aren’t incorporating those things as they should. We want to change that.”
Patrician said the overall goals of the Collaborative include strengthening QSEN knowledge in nursing faculty throughout Alabama through professional development offerings; serving as expert quality and safety consultants in nursing education and practice; and leading other quality and safety education and practice initiatives in the Deep South.
“A few of us across the nation are directly assisting the efforts of the QSEN Institute, and one of those is to increase its impact nationally by regionalizing it,” Patrician said. “Instead of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, being the only place where QSEN activities were taking place, we decided to have regional centers across the county. Dr. Miltner and I saw the need in Alabama and took the lead in this effort by setting up the Deep South Regional Collaborative here.”
Patrician and Miltner both currently serve on the QSEN Board of Directors. The Deep South Regional Collaborative in the UAB School of Nursing is the fourth nationally. The others are located at Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, Florida, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
