Incorporating quality improvement concepts and practice into a community health nursing course

Community health nursing students learned to incorporate continuous quality improvement (CQI) methods in their community health clinical settings. With the help of faculty guides, the students, clinical faculty, and key personnel from the community site collaborated on improvement projects that contributed to the agency's ongoing mission. Successful implementation of the CQI principles improved clinical operations, as well as patient care. In addition, the projects contributed to improved student and faculty satisfaction with the overall community experience. Students completed the projects and their clinical rotation with a sense of making a genuine contribution to the agency, and faculty reflected that the students were more engaged and invested in the project outcomes.