Legal Foundations of Nursing, and Nursing’s path to professionalism Introduction

Legal Foundations of Nursing, and Nursing’s path to professionalism
Introduction to Module 4
Focus for this module includes Legal Foundations of Nursing, and Nursing’s path to professionalism. Topics to be explored will include:
Legal principles and issues
Legislation in practice
Legal concepts relevant to health care
Liability for actions in practice
Quality and Safety in Nursing (QSEN)
Development of the professional nursing role
Specialty in Nursing Practice
Provider of Care, Advocate, Health Promoter, Educator, Manager and Coordinator, Researcher
Member of a profession, political activist, scholar, life-long learner
To Do
All activities in this module are required unless otherwise noted. If you have questions or ideas, prior to contacting the instructor, please post to the FAQ Discussion. Complete the following:
Read assigned readings for this module as listed below
View video Nurses serving on Boards
Write professional paper
Readings
The following text-based resources have been selected to support your success on course assignments and to meet the objectives for this module.
Reading 1 Baccalaureate Essentials: AACN’s RN-BSN Position Statement
Reading 2 ANA Nursing Scope and Standard of practice: pp. 37-50; 51-66
Instructional Materials
These instructional materials are designed to support your success on course assignments and in meeting the objectives for this module.
Lectures:
Media:
Nurses Serving on Boards (Links to an external site.)

Notes:
In 1999 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published shocking results about healthcare errors in the book: To Err is Human (Links to an external site.). From this they developed a list of “never events” (such as amputating the wrong leg or a lethal medication error). Much of the information focuses on the hospital setting. The fundamental difference between their findings and recommendations and those of other institutions is the focus on system-wide problems. Most errors are system wide and the usual pattern of blame has been to single out one person who “caused” the error. Individuals certainly make errors through being sloppy, cutting corners and because of a lack of knowledge and skills. These tend to be isolated incidences. Though not to be ignored, they usually represent a system-wide problem such as working faster (think 5 patients with complex needs!), not receiving proper training in say inserting PICC lines or a system that relies on memory for knowing drug-drug interactions. After the focus on moving from individual blame to systems failures, healthcare moved from advocating for a culture of ‘No Blame’ to a ‘Just Culture’. There must be some accountability by health professionals for patient safety (Wachter & Pronovost, 2009). From the IOM findings, the resolution to save lives and improve health outcomes is to develop and practice within a Culture of Safety.
Quality and Safety Education in Nursing
Cronenwett (2007, 2009), long a leader in quality issues for nursing, led the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) initiative. QSEN was developed to identify the competencies pre-licensure and graduate students need to begin their practices with models of safe practice. QSEN defines safety is defined in the QSEN model as minimizing risk of harm to patients and providers through system effectiveness and through individual performance effectiveness. With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, nurse experts, with consultation and input from multiple accrediting agencies and professional groups, identified the needed safety competencies and have disseminated them widely including through a website, www.qsen.org (Links to an external site.), national forums, and ‘train the trainer’ workshops for faculty.
Traditionally education has focused on the care of individual patients/families, with an understanding of the complexity of care delivery systems being notably absent. The QSEN project represents a significant shift in nursing education by placing considerable emphasis on helping students understand the complexity of care delivery systems.
Nurses already working will know this as Quality Improvement (QI).
The QSEN nursing education model focuses on six major areas listed below.
Patient Centered Care
Teamwork and Collaboration
Evidenced based practice
Quality Improvement
Safety
Informatics
Initial steps to providing safe care and creating a safe environment for us to practice nursing include understanding our roles as individual nurses, as part of a nursing team, as part of a unit, as part of a hospital and as part of a health care systeC. We contribute to both the problems and solutions to patient healthcare! The focus for Quality Improvement and QSEN is looking beyond the care provided by one nurse for one patient. Mistakes and solutions rarely occur as isolated incidences. Using a broad perspective, every member of the health care team members has a vested interest in quality patient outcomes.

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Introduction appeared first on blitzarchive.com.