Doctor in Nursing Practice Course Descriptions

NSG 8000 - Leadership in Health Care. 2 credits: Study of various dimensions of leadership and how they apply to the health care environment. Includes theoretical models and their application to nursing models of practice, personal and organizational integration of values, key aspects of creating and sustaining a learning organization, and leadership as partnership and teamwork.

NSG 8200 - Clinical Outcome Research. 2 credits: Focus on knowledge development in areas such as the translation of research into practice, the evaluation of practice, activities aimed at improving the reliability of health care practice and outcomes, and participation in collaborative research. The use of analytical methods to develop best practices and practice guidelines and to facilitate the evaluation of systems of care that will improve patient outcomes are emphasized.

NSG 8201 - Clinical Project I. 1 credit: Emphasis is placed on the use of analytical methods to assess patient-centered outcomes in a clinical health care or organizational setting. The focus is on developing a design and evaluation plan for the DNP clinical project. Stage one in a three stage process. Students work independently under the guidance of a faculty advisor and attend group seminars.

NSG 8202 - Ethics in Health Care. 2 credits: Analysis of philosophical and empirical research in health care ethics with consideration of human diversity. Exploration of current ethical issues, including relevant contextual factors within the health care disciplines and within the student's area of scholarship and clinical practice. Emphasis on ethical decision-making and implications for the health care disciplines including the professional domains of administration, clinical care, policy, and education.

NSG 8203 - Clinical Project II. 1 credit: Students apply principles of outcome research in the clinical setting while continuing to develop the final clinical project. Students work independently under the guidance of a faculty advisor and attend group seminars.

NSG 8205 - Clinical Project III. 3 credits: Stage three in the development and clinical implementation of the project culminating in the final outcome research project and paper. Students present and critique clinical projects and work independently under the guidance of a faculty advisor and attend group seminars.

NSG 8500 - Nursing Informatics. 3 credits: Strategies and techniques for evaluating the functionalities of computer-based systems specifically designed to support nursing practice and for participating effectively as a -user-designer/architect of nursing-specific software and skills in using and training others to use these nursing software applications.

NSG 8660 - Nursing Management. 2 credits: Integration of organizational and management theories within the context of the nursing process applied to the delivery of nursing services in a variety of settings and systems. The role of the advanced practice nurse in various levels of management is analyzed and core abilities required of the manager emphasized. Factors affecting the dynamic changes in the health care system and delivery of nursing care are investigated.

NSG 8352 - Performance Improvement in Health Care Organizations. 3 credits: Examines the concept of performance management and its application to the health care industry for both larger health care organizations and smaller health care settings. Issues related to the extreme pressure exerted by both purchasers and regulatory agencies for healthcare organizations to improve its performance will be analyzed.

NSG 8420 - Organizational Behavior. 3 credits: Explores the behavior of people within organizations in terms of the factors that are most influential. Those include factors related to individuals, groups and the larger organization system. The course utilizes an experiential learning process that helps students understand their strengths and weaknesses as learners.

NSG 8355 - Healthcare Finance. 3 credits: Covers finance issues related to healthcare organizations, such as: reimbursement analysis, understanding the nature of costs, service line profitability analysis, and preparation of operating and capital budgets. Students learn how to analyze financial statements and their relationship to organizational decision-making.

NSG 8506 - Assessing Clinical Outcomes. 3 credits: This course is designed to prepare health information management professionals to actively participate in outcomes assessment and to exert leadership in implementing clinical outcomes assessment programs within healthcare organizations and systems. The course focuses on the role patient-centered outcomes information plays in assuring that healthcare systems are able to establish cost-effective clinical practices that do improve the health, functional status and well-being of healthcare consumers; accreditation and legislative initiatives impacting healthcare outcomes activities.

NSG 8470 - Program Evaluation. 2 credits: Program evaluation is the systematic collection of information about the activities, characteristics, and outcomes of programs to make judgments about the program, to improve program effectiveness, and/or to inform decisions about future programming. This course examines strategies used in assessing the need for, implementation of and effectiveness of interventions. Topics include: purposes of evaluation, understanding the program, planning the evaluations, roles for the evaluator, selection of criteria and standards, development of measures, implementation evaluation, outcome assessment, qualitative methods, reports of results, utilization of results and ethical issues in program evaluation. Students read reports and prepare proposals.