Quality and Safety Education for Nurses Clinical Evaluation Tool

An efficient evaluation tool is essential when measuring the clinical performance of undergraduate nursing students. It is also important that this evaluation tool accurately assess the critical competencies that students must demonstrate in the clinical setting. The tool should be unambiguous, succinct, and adaptable to a wide variety of clinical experiences and faculty. As part of a curriculum improvement initiative for their baccalaureate nursing program, the nursing faculty teaching in a 4-year undergraduate program identified the need for the development of a new clinical performance evaluation tool for the evaluation of undergraduate nursing students in each clinical placement. The resultant tool more accurately appraised clinical capabilities by focusing on quality and safety in health care, and it permitted the evaluation of critical thinking skills and team communication.