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Nursing and Health Studies

Nursing and Health Studies

DNP Mission and Program Outcomes

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Consistent with the SoNHS mission to prepare the nursing workforce as leaders in improving health outcomes through inter-professional practice, research, and education, the Doctor of Nursing Practice program will prepare nurse leaders and practice experts for fully accountable, inter-professional practice, translating research across diverse healthcare environments.

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon graduation, students of the DNP program will be prepared to:

  • Synthesize research-based evidence to create, implement, evaluate, and translate into practice
    Competencies:  scientific underpinnings…; clinical scholarship…
  • Serve as leaders in nursing and health care by effecting organizational and/or public policy development
    Competencies:  organizational and systems leadership…; health care policy…; information systems/technology…
  • Demonstrate advanced practice expert knowledge, values, and skills to improve health outcomes in a specialized area and/or population foci of nursing
    Competencies:  interprofessional collaboration for…; clinical prevention and population…
  • Demonstrate advanced practice expertise in increasingly complex practice, leadership, and/or faculty roles
    Competencies: advanced nursing practice

DNP Essentials

The following essentials are taken from The Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice 2006 and are available to download. The AACN DNP Essentials constitute the foundation of the program and are threaded throughout all courses. At the end of the coursework each DNP Essential will be addressed, guided by the curricular content and course objectives. The following competencies are taken from Practice Doctorate NP Competencies 2006.

SONHS DNP Competencies

  • Scientific Underpinnings for Practice
  • Organizational and Systems Leadership for Quality Improvement and Systems Thinking
  • Clinical Scholarship and Analytic Methods for Evidence-based Practice
  • Information Systems/Technology and Patient Care Technology for Improvement and Transformation of Health Care
  • Health Care Policy for Advocacy in Health Care
  • Interprofessional Collaboration for Improving Patient and Population Health Outcomes
  • Clinical Prevention and Population Health for Improving the Nation’s Health
  • Advanced Nursing Practice