The quality of clinician and student quality improvement reports: An analysis of 8 years of submissions.

Introduction: Many papers reporting on QI projects are not publishable for a variety of reasons. We compared manuscripts submitted as QI reports between June 2014 and June 2016 (prior to publication of the revised Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE 2.0) with papers submitted to the American Journal of Nursing between July 2016 and December 2022).

A Reflection on Claire Fagin.

Honoring the life and work of this visionary leader.

Facilitating a Culture of Evidence-Based Practice and Quality Improvement Excellence: Streamlining Processes to Improve Care.

This article defines evidence-based practice (EBP) and quality improvement (QI) and examines the positive impact on patient care when they are in place, as well as the barriers to their implementation. An effective tool, Ovid Synthesis, was created to enable clinicians and administrators to streamline the processes for EBP and QI, provide oversight on the initiatives underway, and enable clinical educators to help nursing staff develop the necessary competencies and successfully execute their EBP and/or QI projects.

Applying Principles of a Fair and Just Culture to a Student Scenario.

Background: This article reviews national efforts toward promoting fair and just cultures in schools of nursing. A real-life vignette in which a nursing student made a medication error is presented, and the nursing program contacted the nursing regulatory body for advice on how to handle the situation.

Method: A framework was used to analyze the causes of the error.

QSEN in an Amazon World.

Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) was launched in 2005 as a national nursing initiative aimed at preparing nurses with the competencies needed to continuously improve the quality and safety of the health care they provide. The six QSEN competencies-and the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that each entails-have served as a basis for significant curricular revision, more enlightened professional practice, relevant research, and health care system improvements. Since the launch of QSEN, new technologies have emerged, the range of care sites has broadened, new practice roles have emerged, and patients and families have become more active health care consumers.

Nursing Journal Policies on Disclosure and Management of Conflicts of Interest.

Purpose: Concerns about conflicts of interest (COIs) in research and health care are well known, but recent reports of authors failing to disclose potential COIs in journal articles threatens the integrity of the scholarly literature. While many nursing journals have published editorials on this topic, review of nursing journal policies on and experiences with COIs has not been reported. The purposes of this study were to examine the extent to which nursing journals have COI policies and require disclosures by authors, peer reviewers, editorial board members, and editors who have a role in journal content decisions.

Role of the Chief Nurse Officer in Ensuring Person- and Family-Centered Care.

Person- and family-centered care (PFCC) is a philosophy that has been espoused for decades and yet is rarely embedded in health care organizations. Difficulties dispelling the numerous myths about what PFCC is, as well as daunting challenges to designing and implementing it, have hindered progress. The chief nurse officer is well-positioned to assume organizational leadership in successfully navigating this effort.

Creating a Fair and Just Culture in Schools of Nursing.

: In recent years, health care organizations have been moving away from a culture that responds to errors and near misses with "shame and blame" and toward a fair and just culture. Such a culture encourages and rewards people for speaking up about safety-related concerns, thus allowing the information to be used for system improvement. In part 1 of this series, we reported on findings from a study that examined how nursing schools handled student errors and near misses.

Newly Licensed RN Retention: Hospital and Nurse Characteristics.

Objectives: The aims of this study were to examine the relationship between 1-year retention of newly licensed RNs (NLRNs) employed in hospitals and personal and hospital characteristics, and determine which characteristics had the most influence.

Methods: A secondary analysis of data collected in a study of transition to practice was used to describe the retention of 1464 NLRNs employed by 97 hospitals in 3 states. Hospitals varied in size, location (urban and rural), Magnet® designation, and university affiliation.

CE: Original Research: Exploring How Nursing Schools Handle Student Errors and Near Misses.

Unlabelled: : Background: Little attention has been paid to how nursing students learn about quality and safety, and to the tools and policies that guide nursing schools in helping students respond to errors and near misses.

Purpose: This study sought to determine whether prelicensure nursing programs have a policy for reporting and following up on student clinical errors and near misses, a tool for such reporting, a tool or process (or both) for identifying trends, strategies for follow-up with students after errors and near misses, and strategies for follow-up with clinical agencies and individual faculty members.

Methods: A national electronic survey of 1,667 schools of nursing with a prelicensure registered nursing program was conducted.

A Plea to Faculty: Rethink Student Writing Assignments.

Requiring students to submit poor papers doesn't serve anyone well.

CE: Original Research: Creating an Evidence-Based Progression for Clinical Advancement Programs.

Unlabelled: : Background: The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) project have identified six nursing competencies and supported their integration into undergraduate and graduate nursing curricula nationwide. But integration of those competencies into clinical practice has been limited, and evidence for the progression of competency proficiency within clinical advancement programs is scant. Using an evidence-based approach and building on the competencies identified by the IOM and QSEN, a team of experts at an academic health system developed eight competency domains and 186 related knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) for professional nursing practice.

Nurses' Perceived Skills and Attitudes About Updated Safety Concepts: Impact on Medication Administration Errors and Practices.

Approximately a quarter of medication errors in the hospital occur at the administration phase, which is solely under the purview of the bedside nurse. The purpose of this study was to assess bedside nurses' perceived skills and attitudes about updated safety concepts and examine their impact on medication administration errors and adherence to safe medication administration practices. Findings support the premise that medication administration errors result from an interplay among system-, unit-, and nurse-level factors.

Reporting on Quality Improvement Projects: Where's the Quality?

Why so many of these papers are not publishable.

Development and Psychometric Analysis of a Nurses' Attitudes and Skills Safety Scale: Initial Results.

Health care organizations have incorporated updated safety principles in the analysis of errors and in norms and standards. Yet no research exists that assesses bedside nurses' perceived skills or attitudes toward updated safety concepts. The aims of this study were to develop a scale assessing nurses' perceived skills and attitudes toward updated safety concepts, determine content validity, and examine internal consistency of the scale and subscales.

Explanation and elaboration of the SQUIRE (Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence) Guidelines, V.2.0: examples of SQUIRE elements in the healthcare improvement literature.

Since its publication in 2008, SQUIRE (Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence) has contributed to the completeness and transparency of reporting of quality improvement work, providing guidance to authors and reviewers of reports on healthcare improvement work. In the interim, enormous growth has occurred in understanding factors that influence the success, and failure, of healthcare improvement efforts. Progress has been particularly strong in three areas: the understanding of the theoretical basis for improvement work; the impact of contextual factors on outcomes; and the development of methodologies for studying improvement work.

Preceptor Support in Hospital Transition to Practice Programs.

Objective: The aim of this study was to describe newly licensed RN (NLRN) preceptorships and the effects on competency and retention.

Background: Preceptors are widely used, but little is known about the benefit from the perspective of the NLRN or about the models of the relationships. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing added questions about the preceptor experience in a study of transition-to-practice programs.

Mandate for care.

MUCH HAS been written on the need to move to a more patient- and family-centred system of healthcare delivery. Recognised steps that nursing staff can take to design patient-centred care delivery models include, for example, unrestricted visiting for family members, hourly rounding and having open medical record policies.

Honorary and ghost authorship in nursing publications.

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to (a) assess the prevalence of articles with honorary authors and ghost authors in 10 leading peer-reviewed nursing journals between 2010 to 2012; (b) compare the results to prevalence reported by authors of articles published in high-impact medical journals; and (c) assess the experiences of editors in the International Academy of Nursing Editors with honorary and guest authorship.

Methods: Corresponding authors of articles published in 10 nursing journals between 2010 and 2012 were invited to complete an online survey about the contributions of coauthors to see if the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors () criteria for authorship were met. Additionally, members of the International Academy of Nursing Editors were invited to complete an online survey about their experiences in identifying honorary or ghost authors in articles submitted for publication.

Taking a "deep dive" on integrating QSEN content in San Francisco Bay Area Schools of Nursing.

While the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) initiative launched a national movement to improve the education of prelicensure nursing students, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation funded a series of activities in California over 4 years (2009-2013) to support the implementation and evaluation of the impact of incorporating the QSEN content into nursing curricula in 22 schools of nursing in the San Francisco Bay Area. The purpose of this article is to describe this work, which included a series of workshops for faculty and clinical leaders, support for curricular revision and academic-clinical partnerships, a longitudinal evaluation of the impact of incorporating the QSEN competencies into these schools of nursing, and a set of "deep dives" in a subset of these schools through on-site visits. Early results show that the Moore Foundation initiative is making a difference.

Diffusing QSEN competencies across schools of nursing: the AACN/RWJF Faculty Development Institutes.

A series of regional Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) Faculty Development Institutes were held in 2010 and 2011 to provide nursing faculty with strategies to integrate quality and safety content into their curricula. The interactive coursework focused on the 6 core QSEN competencies. Using a train-the-trainer approach, the QSEN Faculty Development Institute Directors enabled nursing faculty attendees to (a) lead their institution's faculty to incorporate quality and safety content into the curriculum for students; (b) teach and mentor students to deliver high quality and safe patient care; and (c) train other faculty to accomplish these goals.