Integrating Patient Safety Education in the Undergraduate Nursing Curriculum: A Discussion Paper

This paper explores the opportunities and challenges for integrating patient safety education in undergraduate nursing curriculum.

Four dimensions of undergraduate nursing education are examined: National accreditation of nursing programs, building a competency-based nursing education, a model of nursing education and building faculty capacity in patient safety education and research.

Incorporating patient safety in a nursing curriculum can be “institutionalized” by making it a pre-requisite for granting program accreditation. At the operational level, transforming undergraduate nursing education to incorporate inquiry-based learning and moving toward competency-based patient safety education are two key requirements for engaging the students with patient safety science. Building faculty capacity who are experts in both patient safety teaching and research remains a key challenge that needs to be addressed to enable a shift in the patient safety “mindset” for future nursing workforce.

Efforts to introduce patient safety in nursing education are both necessary and timely, and should accommodate students’ unique needs and cultural context.