Program Overview

Program Overview

The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree program at the Decker School of Nursing is designed to produce graduates who can integrate, translate, and apply established and evolving disciplinary nursing knowledge to deliver and improve outcomes for diverse patient populations.

Program Outcomes

The program outcomes for the DNP degree are consistent with professional standards and congruent with the school's mission, vision, and philosophy. These outcomes include:

• Integrating, translating, and applying established and evolving disciplinary nursing knowledge, ways of knowing, and knowledge from other disciplines to deliver and improve outcomes for diverse patient populations, including those who are vulnerable or live in rural areas.
  • Employing established and emerging principles of safety and improvement science within complex healthcare systems to ensure the delivery of safe, effective, ethical, and fiscally responsible quality care to improve patient outcomes.
• Generating, synthesizing, translating, applying, and disseminating nursing knowledge to improve health and transform healthcare to promote safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, ethical, and patient-centered care.
  • Synthesizing information and communication technologies and informatics processes to provide safe, high-quality, and efficient healthcare, gather data, form information to drive ethical decision-making, and support professionals as they expand knowledge and wisdom for practice in accordance with best practice and professional and regulatory standards.
• Responding to and leading within complex healthcare systems to effectively and proactively coordinate resources to provide safe, quality, equitable care to diverse and underserved populations.
  • Collaborating across professions and with care team members, patients, families, communities, and other stakeholders to optimize care, enhance the healthcare experience, strengthen outcomes, and foster a climate of mutual learning, respect, and shared values.
• Providing healthcare across the continuum from public health prevention to disease and disaster management of populations and engaging in collaborative activities with both traditional and nontraditional partnerships from affected communities, public health, industry, academia, healthcare, local government entities, and others for the improvement of equitable population health outcomes.
• Providing person-centered, holistic, developmentally appropriate, and evidence-based care focused on the individual within multiple contexts, including family and important others across the lifespan, utilizing a scientific body of knowledge that guides nursing practice regardless of specialty or functional area.
• Demonstrating accountability for personal and professional conduct, exemplifying core nursing values and ethical behaviors, and consistent with the legal scope and standards of practice to cultivate a sustainable professional nursing identity.
• Participating in activities and self-reflection that foster personal health, resilience, well-being, and lifelong learning, and support the acquisition of nursing expertise and assertion of leadership.