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The Re-Envisioned American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Essentials guide published in April 2021 lays the foundation for nursing education in the new era. The 10 competency-based AACN domains include (1) knowledge for nursing practice; (2) person-centered care; (3) population health; (4) scholarship for nursing practice; (5) quality and safety; (6) interprofessional partnerships; (7) systems-based practice; (8) information and health care technologies; (9) professionalism; and (10) personal, professional, and leadership development. The new AACN Essentials established a new scheme for academic nursing education. Competency-based education was the core of the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) project that launched a national plan in 2005 to improve quality and safety of patient care by initiating competency-based education for nursing students in both undergraduate and graduate programs. The new AACN Essentials integrate the QSEN competency domains: (1) patient-centered care, (2) teamwork and collaboration, (3) evidence-based practice, (4) quality improvement, (5) safety, and (6) informatics (Cronenwett et al., 2007). And, therefore, the QSEN resources, specifically the teaching strategies repository, is a key to integration of the new AACN Essentials.
Teaching Strategies
The history of QSEN dates to 2005 when QSEN leaders from the University of North Carolina School of Nursing and other colleges across the United States created the QSEN competencies and partnered with the AACN from 2008 to 2012 to develop faculty training to ensure the QSEN competencies were integrated into textbooks, licensing, accreditation, and certification standards in the nation's nursing schools. In 2012, the AACN led further development of graduate-level QSEN competencies and regional faculty development meetings and the QSEN Institute continued the work started at UNC.
One of the important contributions of...