Knowledge of both the potential and the actual impact of national patient safety resources, initiatives, and regulations and the use of national benchmarks are required. Changes in healthcare reimbursement with the introduction of Medicare’s list of “never events” and the regulatory push for more transparency on quality outcomes require graduates to be able to determine if the outcomes of standards of practice, performance, and competence have been met and maintained.

The master’s-prepared nurse provides leadership across the care continuum in diverse settings using knowledge regarding high reliability organizations. These organizations achieve consistently safe and effective performance records despite unpredictable operating environments or intrinsically hazardous endeavors (Weick, 2001). The master’s-prepared nurse will be able to monitor, analyze, and prioritize outcomes that need to be improved. Using quality improvement and high reliability organizational principles, these nurses will be able to quantify the impact of plans of action.

The master’s-degree program prepares the graduate to:

1. Analyze information about quality initiatives recognizing the contributions of individuals and inter-professional healthcare teams to improve health outcomes across the continuum of care.

2. Implement evidence-based plans based on trend analysis and quantify the impact on quality and safety.

3. Analyze information and design systems to sustain improvements and promote transparency using high reliability and just culture principles.

4. Compare and contrast several appropriate quality improvement models.

5. Promote a professional environment that includes accountability and high-level communication skills when involved in peer review, advocacy for patients and families, reporting of errors, and professional writing.

6. Contribute to the integration of healthcare services within systems to affect safety and quality of care to improve patient outcomes and reduce fragmentation of care.

7. Direct quality improvement methods to promote culturally responsive, safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, and patient-centered care.

8. Lead quality improvement initiatives that integrate socio-cultural factors affecting the delivery of nursing and healthcare services.

  15 Sample Content

• Quality improvement models differentiating structure, process, and outcome indicators • Principles of a just culture and relationship to analyzing errors • Quality improvement methods and tools: Brainstorming, Fishbone cause and effect diagram, flow chart, Plan, Do Study, Act (PDSA), Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA),Find, Organize, Clarify, Understand, Select-Plan, Do, Check, Act (FOCUS-PDCA), Six Sigma, Lean • High-Reliability Organizations (HROs) / High-reliability techniques •