Fayetteville State University is the first school in North Carolina to offer an online patient safety degree program for nurses, reports The Fayetteville Observer.
North Carolina's public university system in January approved FSU to offer a Master of Science in Nursing in Patient Quality and Safety. The university still needs final approval from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
The program, which mostly entails online classes, will launch this fall. Most nurses will need about a year and a half to complete the degree, which should equate to a minimum salary increase of about $20,000 annually, according to Afua Arhin, PhD, RN, interim dean of FSU's College of Health, Science and Technology.
The program's curriculum will focus on a broad range of topics including epidemiology, pharmacology and ethics.