Purpose
The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program prepares graduates for careers as adult gerontology primary care or psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners with the skills to lead interdisciplinary teams and implement population- focused and evidenced-based health interventions. In addition, DNP graduates are prepared to improve and transform health care through systems’ leadership, research translation, advanced clinical knowledge, application and nursing education. The DNP course work includes translation research methods, theory, health policy, population health, informatics, systems leadership, leadership residencies, and scholarly projects to achieve the goals for the DNP and to meet national accreditation and certification standards.
Outcomes
The Doctor of Nursing Practice Program is designed to prepare advanced practice nurses who are qualified for the American Nurses Credentialing Center examination. The graduate with a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree is prepared to:
1. Integrates, translates, and applies established and evolving nursing knowledge, ways of knowing and multidisciplinary knowledge to maximize health outcomes.
2. Implements person-centered care, defined as caring, holistic, equitable, respectful, evidence-based and developmentally appropriate care, to reduce risk and improve health outcomes.
3. Collaborates across the healthcare delivery continuum, public and private sectors, to provide equitable public health prevention measures and disease management for improved population outcomes for the community of interest.
4. Engages in scholarship through the synthesis, translation, application, and dissemination of nursing knowledge to improve health and transform health care.
5. Implements principles of quality and safety, evaluates outcomes, and promotes system effectiveness and individual performance to enhance quality and minimize risk of harm to patients and providers across the healthcare system. .
6. Facilitates effective communication and collaboration with patients, communities, professional partners and other stakeholders in a variety of forums to optimize healthcare outcomes.
7. Demonstrates organizational and systems leadership to deliver high quality, safe and equitable healthcare to diverse populations.
8. Envisions, appraises, and utilizes communication, informatics, and healthcare technologies to support professional best practice and deliver quality and compassionate care to patients, communities, and populations
9. Formulates and cultivates a sustainable professional identity as an advanced practice nurse as demonstrated by the accountability, perspective, collaborative disposition, and comportment that reflects nursing’s characteristics and values.
10. Advances personal, professional and leadership skills through self-reflection and activities that foster personal well-being, contribute to lifelong learning, and support the acquisition of expertise as an advanced practice nurse and leader.