Program Overview

Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Program

The Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (NNP) is educated to provide holistic, family-centered care for individuals from birth at any gestation to 2 years. Common issues include preterm neonates, infants, and toddlers who may need intervention for preterm or complicated birth, medically unstable situations, episodic illness, primary preventative care, or chronic disease management.

Program Overview

• The NNP curriculum focuses on embryology, transition to extrauterine life, and management of high-risk preterm and term infants.
• The NNP is also educated to deliver ongoing secondary and tertiary prevention related to chronic disease that presents during the first two years of life, including palliative and end-of-life care for babies and their families as needed.
• NNPs practice in neonatal intensive care units, labor and delivery, well baby units, outpatient clinics, and during transport services, collaborating with an interprofessional team.

Program Details

• College: College of Nursing
• Degree: Master of Science in Nursing
• Campus: Center City, Dixon
• Format: Hybrid (Online and On Campus)
• Credits: 45
• Duration: 2 - 5 Years

Program Outcomes

For students matriculated Summer 2025 and onward, the program outcomes include:

1. Integrate and translate established and evolving disciplinary knowledge, principles, and theories from nursing and related sciences into advanced nursing specialty practice.
2. Demonstrate expertise in a defined area of advanced nursing practice specialty/role that is person- and family-centered, culturally responsive, just, respectful, compassionate, coordinated, evidence-based, and developmentally appropriate.
3. Interpret data and develop holistic plans of care, collaborating in traditional and non-traditional partnerships, to improve equity in population health outcomes.
4. Initiate change and improve quality outcomes through research translation and evidence appraisal.
5. Evaluate and integrate established and emerging quality and safety science principles to minimize risk of harm to patients and providers through both individual performance and system effectiveness.
6. Facilitate and direct interprofessional collaborative interventions using a shared decision-making model with patients, families, and communities to optimize care and improve outcomes.
7. Evaluate and optimize relevant resources to manage change within complex systems to provide safe, inclusive, high-quality, equitable, and cost-effective health care to diverse populations.
8. Evaluate and incorporate information and communication technology and informatics processes in accordance with best practice and professional and regulatory standards to deliver safe, high-quality, and efficient healthcare innovations that improve health equity and outcomes.
9. Model core professional values that integrate competency, accountability, ethical behavior, integrity, and empathetic communication into one's advanced nursing specialty practice/role.
10. Utilize critical reflection to prompt personal and professional wellbeing that fosters resilience, enables lifelong learning, and supports the development of nursing leadership attributes.

For students matriculated Fall 2021-Spring 2025, the program outcomes include:

1. Integrate relevant knowledge, principles, and theories from nursing and related sciences into the advanced nursing care of individuals, families, and populations.
2. Demonstrate acumen in organizational leadership through effective collaboration, consultation, and decision-making.
3. Integrate research translation and evidence appraisal into advanced nursing practice to initiate change and improve quality outcomes.
4. Evaluate information science approaches and patient-centric technologies to improve health outcomes and enhance quality of care.
5. Analyze the impact policies, economic factors, and ethical and socio-cultural dimensions have on advanced nursing practice and health care outcomes.
6. Integrate the concepts of interprofessional communication, collaboration, and consultation to effectively manage and coordinate care across systems.
7. Incorporate culturally-appropriate concepts in the planning and delivery of evidence-based preventive and clinical care to communities and populations.
8. Demonstrate expertise in a defined area of advanced practice nursing that influences health care outcomes for individuals, populations, and systems.

Certification

Graduates of the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Program meet the academic eligibility requirements to take the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Certification Examination offered by the National Certification Corporation (NCC). Candidates who meet all eligibility requirements established by the NCC and successfully pass the examination are awarded the credential: Neonatal Nurse Practitioner-Board Certified (NNP-BC).

Partnerships

The NNP program is part of a Neonatal Education Consortium with the College of New Jersey. Additionally, for Florida-based students, the program partners with Nemours Hospital for Children in Orlando, Florida.