Introduction
The Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) is a project that describes a variety of competencies for nurses that need to be followed to contribute to high-quality care in clinical settings. Even though there are six key competencies identified by the researchers in the field of nursing education, they are related to different skills and knowledge areas, and it is important to discuss the competency of safety in much detail (Kangasniemi, Vaismoradi, Jasper, & Turunen, 2013, p. 904). The main focus is on the use of safety-enhancing technologies. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the overall importance of QSEN, to describe the competency of safety and the associated statement, to explore the existing evidence-based research, and to apply the competency to clinical settings.
Importance of Quality and Safety Education in Nursing
The QSEN project is extremely important for nursing practice because the competencies and skill statements associated with them provide nurses with the framework of how to improve the quality of their care and contribute to patient safety. From this perspective, quality and safety education provides nurses with all the necessary knowledge and skills that can be successfully applied during their daily practice (Reid & Catchpole, 2011, p. 209). Focusing on the QSEN competencies, nurses can perceive the required knowledge skills from both the systematic and individual approaches. As a result, the nurses’ efforts in applying the quality and safety principles become more productive.
Statement of the QSEN Competency
Safety is one of the most important QSEN competencies. According to the definition, safety “minimizes the risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance” (QSEN: Pre-licensure KSAS, Safety, 2014, para. 1). In this field, one of the most critical knowledge statements is an item focusing on the description of “benefits and limitations of selected safety-enhancing technologies”, including automatic alerts and alarms (QSEN: Pre-licensure KSAS, Safety, 2014, para. 2). These competencies and statements are important to nursing because they need to address the patient safety issues immediately, and nurses need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of safety-enhancing technologies to predict possible risks for the security of patients in clinics.
Review of Articles
Despite focusing on patient safety, nurses can often use alert systems and alarms wrongly, especially when these medical devices have errors. In her article, Mattox (2012) examines how manufacture-related errors in alert systems and other medical devices as well as mistakes in using these devices can affect patient safety in detail. Mattox pays attention to the fact that nurses can often provoke risky situations related to patient safety while misunderstanding the nature of possible errors in bedside alert systems, central alarms, and other automatic alert systems (Mattox, 2012, p. 60). Therefore, according to the author, the purpose of safety education is to enhance understanding of possible errors in using medical devices and to propose strategies important to improve “health care safety and quality related to the use of medical devices” (Mattox, 2012, p. 60). It is significant for nurses to recognize and apply all the rules and guidelines while using alert systems and other medical devices, however, it is also important to accept possibilities of errors and have an effective strategy to reduce risks for patients’ safety and reject using the device.
Thus, patient safety depends significantly on the approach followed by nurses to using alert systems, including the bed-height ones. In 2013, Tzeng and the group of researchers conducted the study focused on analyzing the effectiveness of using bed-height alert systems for improving patient safety and preventing falls of patients (Tzeng, Prakash, Brehob, & Anderson, 2013, p. 301). It was found that the system is effective to reduce the percentage of patient falls in the clinical environments, but the alert system can work accurately only when the nursing staff uses it appropriately (Tzeng et al., 2013). From this perspective, a range of risks for patients, including fall-related injuries, can be prevented when automatic alert systems are used effectively, and the main influential factors are the nurse’s awareness of the fact, the nurse’s knowledge, and skills in utilizing these systems.
How Safety and Statement Can Be Practiced in Clinical Settings
In clinical environments, different types of alert and alarm systems are typically used for guaranteeing the safety of patients. From this perspective, safety-enhancing technologies can be found in the majority of facilities as devices to increase the security of the clinical setting. In this context, to utilize bed-height and bedside alert systems, automatic alarm systems, and central alert systems appropriately, nurses need to know the benefits and possible limitations of the proposed technologies. Safety-enhancing technologies are proposed to protect patients from health-associated risks (Davis, Landon, & Brothers, 2015, p. 56). However, to use these systems, nurses need to learn the instructions for devices, follow guidelines and manuals, understand the types and possibilities of errors. While focusing on these aspects, nurses can improve the quality of care and make the environment safer for patients.
Comparison of the Evidence with the Practice
While comparing and contrasting the evidence from the research and the real-life situations from the nurses’ practice, it is possible to state that nurses need to pay more attention to developing their knowledge regarding safety-enhancing technologies. Different types of automatic technologies are developed to provide nurses with immediate alerts regarding the patients’ state and their safety. According to Mattox’s research, these alert systems do not always work perfectly, and nurses can consider themselves guilty for possible incidents (Mattox, 2012, p. 61). This situation is often the result of the lack of knowledge regarding safety-enhancing technologies, and it is typical for clinical settings and inexperienced nurses. Thus, much attention should be paid to making nurses aware of all these aspects and challenges. The research by Tzeng et al. (2013) indicates that alert systems are most feasible when they are used according to the guidelines and when nurses focus on the rules of exploitation. This conclusion is supported by the evidence from practice because, despite using safety-enhancing technologies appropriately, nurses often do not follow all the requirements for the exploitation of technologies.
Conclusion
The QSEN initiative is important to improve the knowledge base of nurses regarding particular areas of patient care and everyday nursing practice. It is possible to state that safety is one of the basic competencies, and the statement associated with understanding the advantages and disadvantages of technologies is important to determine which areas nurses need to focus on in their daily practice. This statement helps concentrate the nurses’ attention on the aspects of using technologies while allowing avoidance of errors and risky situations in the clinical settings.
References
Davis, C., Landon, D., & Brothers, K. (2015). Safety alert: Protecting yourself and others from violence. Nursing, 45(1), 55-59.
Kangasniemi, M., Vaismoradi, M., Jasper, M., & Turunen, H. (2013). Ethical issues in patient safety: Implications for nursing management. Nursing Ethics, 20(8), 904-916.
Mattox, E. (2012). Medical devices and patient safety. Critical Care Nurse, 32(4), 60-68.
QSEN: Pre-licensure KSAS, Safety. (2014). Web.
Reid, J., & Catchpole, K. (2011). Patient safety: A core value of nursing – so why is achieving it so difficult? Journal of Research in Nursing, 16(3), 209-223.
Tzeng, H., Prakash, A., Brehob, M., & Anderson, A. (2013). How feasible was a bed-height alert system? Clinical Nursing Research, 22(3), 300-309.