OCC’s nationally recognized Nursing Quality and Safety Committee serves as model for other colleges
OCC’s Nursing quality and safety reporting programs have drawn the attention of other higher education institutions.
The College’s Good Catch report and Quality and Safety Reporting Tool identify trends and provide direction for process improvement, with the overall goal of improving the quality and safety of the clinical practice of students and faculty.
“Health care errors are a huge problem in the United States,” explains OCC Nursing Faculty Nina Barkell,chair of the College’s Nursing Quality and Safety Committee. “Our students graduate with knowledge to prevent health care errors. This competency is needed in health care, but not all schools provide it. This makes OCC students unique and very desirable for employers.”
The Nursing Quality and Safety Committee was formed in Fall 2011. It has been recognized regionally and nationally as “an exemplar for promoting a just culture in nursing education.”In a just culture, emphasis is not placed on blaming individuals for errors but rather on examining personal and system processes that can best support safety and prevent recurrence.
Barkell and her colleagues have given presentations at the Quality Safety Education in Nursing (QSEN), Organization for Associate Degree Nursing and other conferences about OCC’s programs, including the:
- Good Catch report: Submitted by students or faculty and describes an occurrence where a student intercepted an error, such as medication dosage, or otherwise saved a patient from harm. Students are recognized in the College’s Quality and Safety newsletter and receive a certificate and badge safety pin.
- Quality and Safety Reporting Tool: Documents quality and safety concerns that occurred in clinical practice and recommendations for improvements. Submissions are anonymous.
Faculty Librarian Beth Garnsey created online versions and QR codes for the Good Catch Report and the Quality and Safety Reporting Tool. The information can be found in the Library Nursing Research Guide along with Quality and Safety related websites and the committee’s newsletter.
“These online forms make the reporting of events easier for nurses and nursing students and, in addition, facilitate saving the data collected and performing data analysis,” said Garnsey.
The student experience
OCC students Tasneem Bhuiyan and Maria Cox serve as student representatives on the College’s Nursing Quality and Safety Committee alongside full time and adjunct faculty, the department’s secretary and Garnsey. The committee meets monthly and distributes a newsletter five times a year.
“The committee really helps improve patient care and helps students recognize anyone can make a mistake,” Bhuiyan said. “It’s important to talk about our experiences during clinicals to prevent future errors and not fear retaliation. With this in place, it helps us feel like we have a team.”
Cox described the committee as a safe place to share experiences they’ve had in clinical rotations.
“I learned a lot of us have been in very similar scenarios and no one is perfect,” Cox said. “We’ve heard from professors it's important that we communicate even small mistakes and lift each other up instead of judging and making assumptions. We can all learn from one another and that will make us better nurses.”
Oakland Community College has one of the largest nursing programs in Michigan. For more information visit oaklandcc.edu/health/nursing.
About OCC
Oakland Community College offers nearly 100 degrees and certificates programs with the resources students need to be successful and advance our community. As a top transfer institution, OCC offers one of the state’s most affordable tuition rates and flexibility in scheduling with face-to-face and online options. The College is nationally recognized for its high-demand career training with expert faculty in their fields. More than 1 million students have enrolled in the College since it opened in 1965. Learn more at oaklandcc.edu.
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