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. Over 1,100 nursing faculty from across the United States attended the institutes. All types of prelicensure programs were represented including diploma, associate, and baccalaureate degree. In a preinstitute survey, faculty identified multiple opportunities to improve the integration of quality and safety content into curricula including the need for specific content on quality improvement, teamwork and collaboration, and informatics and the need for interprofessional experiences and electronic health record access. Postinstitute evaluations indicated that participants found the content clear, specific, usable, and presented in a format that facilitated thought, reflection, and application. The regional institutes served as a very effective strategy for engaging large numbers of faculty across the country in the QSEN work and for disseminating vital tactics to improve the teaching of quality and safety content.