© 2021 American Association of Colleges of Nursing. All rights reserved.

Interprofessional: Engagement involving two or more professions or professionals.
Interprofessional team: The cooperation, coordination, and collaboration expected among
members of different professions in delivering patient-centered care collectively.
Just culture: Balances the need for an open and honest reporting environment with a quality
learning environment and culture. All individuals within this environment are held responsible
for the quality of their choices. Just culture requires a change in focus from errors and outcomes
to system design and management of the behavioral choices of all employees.
Lifelong learning: The provision or use of both formal and informal learning opportunities
throughout one’s life to foster the continuous development and improvement of the knowledge
and skills needed for employment and personal fulfillment.
Macrosystem: The highest system level represents the whole of the organization and is led by
senior leaders such as the CEO, chief operations officer (COO), chief nursing officer (CNO), and
chief information officer (CIO) and is guided by a board of trustees (Nelson, et al., 2007).
Managing disease: To improve the health of persons with chronic conditions and reduce
associated costs from avoidable complications by identifying and treating chronic conditions
more quickly and more effectively, thus slowing the progression of diseases.
Mesosystem: The interrelated units and clinical leadership that provide care to certain
populations (McKinley et al., 2008).
Microsystem: Small, functional frontline units that provide the most health care to most people
(Nelson et al., 2007, p.3). A clinical microsystem is a small group of people who work together
on a regular basis to provide care to discrete subpopulations of patients. These units have
clinical and business aims, linked processes, and a shared information environment, and focus
on producing performance outcomes. Microsystems are complex adaptive systems, and as such
they must do the primary work associated with core aims, meet the needs of internal staff, and
maintain themselves over time as clinical units (Nelson, et al., 2002).
Mitigation: The action of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something.
Mobile health (mHealth): The use of mobile and wireless technologies to support the
achievement of health objectives. The expanding use of mobile health is driven rapid advances
in mobile technologies and applications, a rise in new opportunities for the integration of
mobile health into existing eHealth services, and the continued growth in coverage of mobile
cellular networks.
Moral courage: The willingness of individuals to take hold of, and fully support, ethical
responsibilities essential to professional values (Day, 2007). This highly esteemed trait is
displayed by individuals, who, despite adversity and personal risk, decide to act upon their
ethical values to help others during difficult ethical dilemmas. Moral courage entails doing the
right thing, even when others choose less ethical behavior, which may include taking no action
at all (Lachman, 2009; 2007a; 2007b; Sekerka & Bagozzi, 2007).
Moral ethical behaviors: Prevailing standards of behavior used to judge right and wrong.

THE ESSENTIALS: CORE COMPETENCIES FOR PROFESSIONAL NURSING EDUCATION 61