Doctoral Degree

DNP 

New DNP Student Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of a doctoral degree, the graduate will be able to:

• Integrate, translate, and apply scientific underpinnings to improve nursing practice, clinical judgement and patient outcomes within the four spheres of care.
• Design, implement, and evaluate safe, evidence-based, person-centered, compassionate care.
• Influence population health, including improvements in health care policy, utilizing effective collaboration and advocacy strategies to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Employ nursing scholarship to advance nursing practice, optimize care, address health inequities, and take actions that target high priority social determinants of health.
• Apply principles of quality improvement, ethics, and safety at both the individual and systems levels.
• Effectively communicate and collaborate with care team members, patients, families, communities, and other stakeholders to optimize care, enhance the healthcare experience, and strengthen outcomes.
• Lead innovative strategies that promote the provision of safe, cost-effective, equitable care to diverse patient populations across complex healthcare systems.
• Utilize information systems, communication technology, and informatics to improve and transform healthcare systems.
• Demonstrate professionalism, including participation in activities that support nursing’s professional identity, accountability, ethical principles, and values.
• Participate in activities and self-reflection that foster personal health, resilience, well–being, lifelong learning, competence, and leadership. 

Prior DNP Student Learning Outcomes 

Upon successful completion of a doctoral degree, the graduate will be able to:

• Integrate scientific underpinnings which support the translation of nursing research to improve nursing clinical practice.
• Design and evaluate safe, cost-effective, patient care delivery strategies to meet the needs of patient populations and positively influence health outcomes.
• Apply clinical scholarship and leadership skills to advance nursing practice.
• Utilize information systems/technology and patient care technology to improve and transform healthcare.
• Demonstrate knowledge to develop, implement, and evaluate health care policy to advocate for patient populations.
• Engage in effective communication skills to lead and participate in inter-professional collaboration for improving patient and population health outcomes.
• Lead culturally sensitive, preventative, population focused health services based on epidemiological, biostatistical, and environmental data.
• Demonstrate advanced nursing practice at the individual, family, and population levels.

PhD

Upon successful completion of the PhD degree, it is expected that students will be able to:

• Generate and disseminate new knowledge by developing and evaluating interventions to improve health outcomes
• Integrate culturally competent and ethically responsible research practices as a response to health disparities and identified needs
• Lead and promote interdisciplinary teams to conduct health-related translational research and evidence-based equities
• Communicate nursing research findings to influence health policy decision-making and to promote health equities
• Conduct scholarly activities through research, teaching, mentoring and service to support the discipline and practice of nursing
• Provide leadership in advancing the profession through discovery, application and integration of nursing science