Using Quality and Safety Education for Nurses to Prevent and Treat Clostridium Difficile

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The QSEN initiative is the progression of quality and safety of education for nurses that began in 2005 and has been continued over the past eight years. It is a multi-phase process that shows current and future nurses how to apply knowledge, skills, and attitudes to their everyday nursing activities(QSEN, 2013, 1). Nurses and student nurses can use their knowledge, skills and attitudes to help prevent never events such as hospital acquired conditions. Never events are medical errors that could have been serious and preventable. They could have been caused by poor communication, lack of proper nursing skills, or simply just negligence. QSEN can also be used to improve nursing outcomes for everyone involved in the healthcare field.
A common hospital acquired condition that nurses see now days is clostridium difficile. This bacterium usually invades patients who have been on long-term antibiotics that have killed off bacteria that protect them from infection. C. diff is passed from host to host by both direct and indirect contact making it readily moved from patient to patient in hospital settings (Mayo, 2013, 1). Nurses can use the QSEN competencies and KSAs to help treat and prevent hospital acquired conditions such as C.diff.
The first steps nurses can take are by using the second competency of teamwork and collaboration. This competency shows the importance for nurses to work as a functioning group with other staff members by using affective communication, respect, and shared decision making (QSEN, 2013, 2). To be an affective nurse, it is vital to apply the correct knowledge, skills, and attitudes to each situation. To prevent mass outbreaks of C.diff in your work place, nurses should work together by communicating ideas abo...

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...thers in the healthcare field and to be aware of what our outcomes of care are. I am very interested to see where the quality and safety education program will be and how many advances they have made a few years down the road from now.

Works Cited

1. Mayo Clinic staff. (2013). C. difficile. Treatments and drugs. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/c-difficile/DS00736/DSECTION=treatments-and-drugs.
2. QSEN institute. (2013). Pre-Licensure KSAS. Quality Improvement. Retrieved from http://qsen.org/competencies/graduate-ksas/#teamwork_collaboration
3. QSEN institute. (2013). Pre-Licensure KSAS. Evidenced-Based Practice. Retrieved from http://qsen.org/competencies/graduate-ksas/#teamwork_collaboration
4. QSEN institute (2013). Pre-Licensure KSAS. Teamwork and Collaboration. Retrieved from http://qsen.org/competencies/graduate-ksas/#teamwork_collaboration

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