Volume 47, July–August 2023, Pages 56-63Author links open overlay panel, , , , Abstract

DNP faculty who mentor students in quality improvement (QI) DNP projects often lack essential knowledge of QI principles. The purpose of this article is to guide DNP programs in developing confident and competent faculty mentors for QI DNP projects, facilitating DNP student success. At a multi-campus practice- and research-intensive university, strategies employed to teach College of Nursing faculty essential knowledge of QI principles comprise structural and process components. Structural supports standardize faculty workload, promote potential for collaborative scholarship, and provide instructional and resource support for faculty mentors. Organizational processes facilitate identification of practice sites and meaningful projects. A College of Nursing and university Institutional Review Board collaboration established policy to guide human subjects protection regarding DNP project activity, streamlining and standardizing the process. Library support mechanisms, access to ongoing faculty QI training and resources, and faculty feedback processes to improve QI faculty development are ongoing and sustained. Peer coaching provides continued support for faculty development. Initial process outcomes indicate that implemented strategies are well-received by faculty. The transition to competency-based education provides opportunities to create tools to measure multiple student quality and safety competencies highlighted in Domain 5 of The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education and inform future directions for faculty development essential to support student success.

Section snippetsTransform health care with changes to education and training

A directive for practitioners to transform health care resulted from two seminal Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, 2000, Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, 2001 quality and safety reports' recommendations to improve the quality of care. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) report Assessing the Progress on the Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing (2016

Provide faculty mentors with meaningful practice partner QI projects

In addition to clinical practice partnerships, programs need to strengthen DNP project partner relationships. It is critical that faculty members understand that the DNP project is about solutions to the practice partner problems, not the student's topic or passion. Partners can be asked: What keeps them up at night? What quality measures are they under-performing? What patient harm prevention is a priority to them? Many health care organizations' strategic plans or dashboards are available on

Provide regular faculty development

Faculty development is needed orient new faculty, update current faculty and incorporate changes to the quality improvement DNP projects. The development can be a workshop or presented using a format that already works for faculty. A noon hour lunch and learn modality offered in person, with remote access options, works well for our faculty. Offered each year, faculty learn about mentoring requirements such as assignments, deliverables, due dates, overall project flow, and student

Assess faculty mentor development outcomes

As an outcome of the program, students must have the opportunity to integrate all DNP Essentials into practice (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2015; American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2021). With the shift to competency-based education, the challenge is in assessment of competency in students (Carraccio et al., 2016). Using Table 1 as a checklist, faculty mentors can assess their attainment of Domain 5 and 10 Level 2 sub-competencies after a QI DNP project workshop and

Conclusions

DNP prepared nurses are needed to improve healthcare quality outcomes. To prepare faculty to address this need, we implemented strategies such as structural supports to facilitate faculty mentors' workload, potential for scholarship, and resources. Ongoing strategies include processes to identify QI DNP projects for students, collaboration with university supports such as our health science librarians and the Office of Protection of Human Subjects, as well as targeted QI training to improve

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Declaration of competing interest

None.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for collaboration with Rebecca Raszewski, MS, AHIP,Associate Professor & Information Services & Liaison Librarian, Library Liaison to the UIC Graduate Nursing in Chicago University of Illinois Chicago and her team on all campus locations.

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CPPS: Certified Professional in Patient SafetyView full text

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