Both approaches depend on collaborative partnerships with clinical agencies to discern core content in defining clinical competence for nurse clinicians. This close connection to nursing practice in QSEN and COPA effectively bridges the age-old theory-practice gap that has burdened nursing education and practice for decades. Core competencies are defined in both approaches, although differently, using action-oriented terms. The national emphasis on patient safety requires that faculty implement more standardized criterion-referenced measurements, or rubrics, to effectively evaluate learning in clinical education.
The COPA outcome competencies are end-result practice abilities that must be achieved by students to validate competence. The operationalization of definitions of competence into measurable outcomes is vital in developing objective measures of clinical learning. The COPA model as a curricular framework was instrumental in the shift to performance-based definitions for verification of competence.
In the COPA model, competencies are integrated in learning and examination periods with the increasing complexity of course content.
Typically, two or more competencies are integrated simultaneously into a single complex outcome consistent with actual practice. The results provide specific direction regarding where KSA elements from each competency are best introduced and where they are best emphasized. As faculty look to integrate the QSEN competencies and KSAs across a curriculum and across teaching settings, results of the Delphi study provide helpful guidance about where to target specific KSAs of each competence.
In addition, safety is a top priority in both approaches. The QSEN initiative includes content and learning opportunities that teach students about human factors and basic safety design principles in health care. Both approaches to clinical education result in a stronger professional formation of nurse clinicians who can practice effectively in the context of interdisciplinary teams, evidence-based health care systems, and quality improvement processes.
By implementing learning and psychometric principles, skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and other core competencies can be operationalized more effectively by integrating both approaches to promote competent care. Both are maximally used when content and processes are integrated across classroom, simulation and skills learning laboratories, and clinical environments. Teaching in silos is ineffective, especially when gaps exist between the classroom, simulation and skills learning laboratories, and clinical settings. Repeated reinforcement of concepts across learning settings ensures the foundation of a professional identity is rooted in these explicitly recurring competencies.
A concept emphasized in both COPA and QSEN is that competence is learned most effectively when it is consistently and progressively integrated across all learning environments. Each adds value to the other; however, QSEN has a distinct focus on a systems component. The six competencies of QSEN are rooted in the nurse as part of an interdisciplinary team practicing in a complex health care system. In the COPA model, this perspective is implicit and integrated in the eight core practice competencies, consistent with course content and practice expectations.
As nursing professional identity becomes more clearly grounded in participating in health care systems, nursing students also will need to have an unequivocal systems focus in their education. The COPA model offers clear direction for standardized evaluation of competence.
The COPA model explicitly emphasizes actual performance examinations focused on the integration of the eight competencies and relevant skills that are embedded in didactic and clinical courses. The CON faculty discovered integration of the QSEN KSAs into the competency performance examination process produces a stronger basis for comprehensive assessment of student achievement of practice-based competencies. With close analysis, the synergy of integrating these two value sets into a new framework for nursing education became evident. This interrelationship is true for each of the other five QSEN competencies.
All eight of the COPA practice competencies are required to achieve this competence. Nursing students must develop assessment skills to implement their part of the partnership. Teaching is implicit in all nursing care, especially as nurses are adjusting a plan of care to include values of mutuality and respect. The same analysis applies to all of the QSEN overarching competencies. The integration of a COPA-QSEN framework throughout a curriculum would ensure students learn the KSAs for the essential content and competencies required for beginning practice, with an updated emphasis on an understanding of systems.
When the COPA model and CPE tool were reassessed in the context of becoming one of the QSEN pilot schools, the complementary and shared values of safety, competence, and specific action-oriented definitions became apparent. The intended purpose and language of each have much in common, and in fact when integrated, they added important synergy to the educational process. The original essence of the learner-oriented competency outcome statements was not altered; rather, it was expanded by including the important systems contexts and content competencies developed by QSEN. These components define expected proficiency in clinical practice in clinical courses.
As such, CPEs are valuable clinical evaluation tools, used at our university to provide a concrete, objective assessment of actual student clinical competence. The six QSEN competencies are used as overarching competency content areas. The CPE was formatted into an easy-to-use recording form for clinical preceptors to use for legal documentation when they conducted midterm and final clinical examinations.
The final assessment instruments and process are more valuable because they contain content and competency outcomes, and specific, objective, measurable standards critical elements to validate student competence. The integration of the COPA model and the QSEN competencies has resulted in a more synergistic and reliable interaction of course content and practice abilities made evident during the competency assessment of students. Nursing education is undergoing a revitalization as the mandate for educational models to become more relevant to current practice is more urgent than ever.
Due in part to demand from key stakeholders in the community for increased clinical competency as well as the IOM reports, clinical nursing education models have shifted in the past decade to provide increasing specificity in defining and measuring competence in clinical outcomes.
This article explores one school and one approach to addressing QSEN competencies in a competency-based curriculum. Other schools are considering similar questions. For example, the Oregon Consortium for Nursing Education OCNE is a progressive statewide initiative to develop new nursing clinical education models that effectively address the nursing and nursing faculty shortage, the increased enrollment in nursing programs, the decreased availability of clinical training sites, smaller budgets, and the increased complexity of nursing care in diverse settings.
Some nursing programs that shifted the curricular framework to COPA concepts, outcomes, and validation methods may raise concerns about the emerging implementation of the QSEN initiative. The relevance of the COPA model and value system is increased in the context of QSEN, in which not only clinical competence is necessary to protect patient safety, but systems competence also is equally vital. Nursing faculty resist the message that a new nursing curricular model must replace the model that recently was fully instituted. As the CON faculty continues to explore ways to implement the components of QSEN into its prelicensure curriculum, they are relieved to discover the COPA work of the past decade will not be undone or replaced.
The COPA model was developed more than two decades ago, and it is a clear testament to its efficacy and effectiveness that its primary focus and concepts are evident in, and readily applicable to, the new QSEN initiative. Developed separately and from different perspectives, they share the same concerns for promoting student competence and continuing competence in nursing practice to safeguard patient safety and enhance quality care.
Cherry Ames Series. The first core competency is Patient-centered care that calls for all attention to be paid to the patient by the respective nurse. Clinical Nurse Specialist, 22 3 , It supports nursing's effort to protect patients from osteoporosis-related bone breaks. Healthcare Administration. All Rights Reserved. The competency of safety aims to minimize risk of harm through system effectiveness and through individual performance.
Both approaches are relevant and applicable in diverse nursing education programs and varied care settings. Until now, each model has been perceived as separate but our experience illustrates the complementary synergy obtained from integrating them into a more comprehensive educational framework.
The QSEN initiative provides explication of several essential content competency categories that are interwoven in essentially every course throughout the curriculum. They guide course development and focus student learning toward competent safe nursing care. The COPA model provides the structure for implementing these content competencies into practice-based competency outcomes and standardized performance assessment in both didactic and clinical courses.
Integrated into a unified framework, they create a positive synergistic relationship between essential content and the desired end-result outcomes and verified performance competence. Over time, a new model can evolve that integrates both frameworks into a more synergistic and comprehensive model that is supported by research. The pilot schools in the QSEN project, the schools that incorporate the COPA model, and the agencies that employ the graduates all provide rich resources for ongoing education research.
Multiple studies are needed to determine the effectiveness of these and other potential evolving models, all of which now have a greater mandate to advance the competence of clinicians to ensure safe patient outcomes and quality care. Tell us what you think about Healio.
Login Register My Saved. News Journals Books Jobs. Journal of Nursing Education The articles prior to January are part of the back file collection and are not available with a current paid subscription.
View PDF. Abstract As nursing programs respond to vital initiatives such as Quality and Safety Education for Nurses QSEN , nursing faculty will discover important shared values exist between competency-based curricular models and the latest call for stronger foci on safety and quality.
Full Text. As its proponent, she seeks to define the nurse-patient relationship. She advocates for active participation of both parties in ensuring that the experience is more human. The nurse is expected to initiate the communication process that leads to treatment. On the other hand, the patient is expected to open up to the nurse during care and treatment.
The interpersonal relationship between the nurse and the patient has four distinct phases, which are; orientation in which the nurse and the patient are strangers who need to know one another, identification of the problems requires the combined efforts of the nurse and the patient, exploitation of the available resources by the patient, and resolution which calls for termination of the nurse-patient relationship once the goals have been met. These phases are interrelated and call for overlapping roles and functions during the nurse-patient experience in solving health- related problems De, There are requirements for each competency in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
The first core competency is Patient-centered care that calls for all attention to be paid to the patient by the respective nurse. Another core quality and safety education for nurses QSEN competency is Quality Improvements QI which entails the adoption of essential organizational and system leadership that ensures quality care.
The fifth core competency is safety that requires uttermost care to be taken when handling the patient. Lastly, Informatics requires appropriate information management and application of patient care technology.
Core Competencies for Nursing Leadership and Management This second edition of Introduction to Quality and Safety Education for Nurses. Introduction to Quality and Safety Education for Nurses. SKU# Core Competencies. Editors: Patricia Kelly MSN, RN; Beth A.
There are three basic skills that a nurse requires: observation, communication and recording. These three operations are invaluable for the use of nursing as an interpersonal process.
This process should be therapeutic and educative for the patient. Secondly, the quality and safety education for nurses QSEN competencies have been applied to improve nurse education as the nurse trainees are being prepared for the world outside Peplau, Show related SlideShares at end. WordPress Shortcode. Full Name Comment goes here. Are you sure you want to Yes No. Be the first to like this. No Downloads. Views Total views. Actions Shares. Embeds 0 No embeds. No notes for slide. Description this book This is the first undergraduate textbook to provide a comprehensive overview of essential knowledge, skill, and attitudes about safety in nursing practice.
These include pharmacists, lawyers, physicians, librarians, quality improvement nurses, radiology technologists, nurse practitioners, 4. Key Features:Comprises the only undergraduate text to address the six areas of requisite nursing competencies as developed by the QSEN initiativeProvides a strong foundation for safe, evidence-based carePresents an inter-professional approach that reflects health care todaySupports teaching with PowerPoint slides, critical thinkiIntroduction to Quality and Safety Education for Nurses: Core Competencies [FULL] This is the first undergraduate textbook to provide a comprehensive overview of essential knowledge, skill, and attitudes about safety in nursing practice.