Course Objectives, Learning Outcomes and Handbooks

BSN Essentials

1. Liberal Education for Baccalaureate Generalist Nursing Practice
2. Basic Organizational and Systems Leadership for Quality Care and Patient Safety
3. Scholarship for Evidence Based Practice
4. Information Management and Application of Patient Care Technology
5. Health care Policy, Finance, and Regulatory Environments
6. Interprofessional Communication and Collaboration for Improving Patient Health Outcomes
7. Clinical Prevention and Population Health
8. Professionalism and Professional Values
9. Baccalaureate Generalist Nursing Practice

CON BSN and APNI/BSN Programs Student Learning Outcomes

1. Integrate knowledge from liberal arts, nursing science, and related disciplines to promote well being through a generalist practice.
2. Provide patient-centered care by applying the nursing process to maximize the health of clients.
3. Demonstrate critical thinking attitudes, skills, and abilities in clinical decision making and evaluation of evidence-based nursing practice.
4. Integrate technology and information management with relationship-centered nursing care across the health continuum in a variety of health care settings.
5. Use interpersonal communication, collaboration, and organizational skills to work in partnerships with clients, families, communities, and the health care team to promote health.
6. Apply leadership principles and quality improvement techniques to influence health policy, regulations, and the provision of care to ensure quality and safety.
7. Demonstrate professional values through commitment to self-evaluation, lifelong learning, professionalism, service, respect for diversity, and social justice.

DNP Essentials

1. Scientific underpinnings for practice
2. Organizational and systems leadership for quality improvement and systems thinking
3. Clinical scholarship and analytic method for evidence-based practice
4. Information systems/technology and patient care technology for the improvement and transformation of health care
5. Health care policy for advocacy in health care
6. Inter-professional collaboration for improving patient and population health outcomes
7. Clinical prevention and population health for improving the nation’s health
8. Advanced nursing practice

CON DNP and Post-Graduate Certificate (PGC) Program Student Learning Outcomes

1. Synthesize knowledge from nursing & other disciplines in the provision of evidence‐based advanced practice nursing care.
2. Utilize information systems technology to improve health care access, quality, and outcomes.*
3. Demonstrate competence in an advanced nursing practice specialty.
4. Exercise leadership through scholarship, advocacy, & community engagement to achieve just & equitable health care systems that improve health potential & reduce health disparities of vulnerable populations.*
5. Evaluate and influence health care systems and health policy at local, state, federal, and global levels.*
6. Demonstrate effective communication & interprofessional collaboration in the promotion of health care access, quality,& outcomes.
7. Evaluate beliefs, values, and ways of knowing to foster lifelong personal and professional development.*
8. Apply ethical decision‐making in complex clinical situations.

*Outcome applies to DNP only, not applicable to PGC.

QSEN Competencies

Cronenwett L, Sherwood G, Barnsteiner J, Mitchell P, Sullivan DT, Warren J. (2007) Quality and Safety Education for Nurses. Nursing Outlook, 122-131.

1. Patient-centered care: Recognize the patient or designee as the source of control and full partner in providing compassionate and coordinated care based on respect for patient’s preferences, values, and needs.
2. Evidence-based practice: Function effectively within nursing and inter-professional teams, fostering open communication, mutual respect, and shared decision-making to achieve quality patient care.
3. Teamwork and collaboration: Integrate best current evidence with clinical expertise and patient/family preferences and values for delivery of optimal health care.
4. Quality improvement: Use data to monitor the outcomes of care processes and use improvement methods to design and test changes to continuously improve the quality and safety of health care systems.
5. Safety: Minimizes risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance.
6. Informatics: Use information and technology to communicate, manage knowledge, mitigate error, and support decision making.

American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics with interpretative statements. Silver Spring, MD.

1. The nurse practices with compassion and respect for inherent dignity, worth and unique attributes of every person.
2. The nurse’s primary commitment is to the patient, whether an individual, family group, community or population.
3. The nurse promotes, advocates for, and protects the rights, health, and safety of the patient.
4. The nurse has authority, accountability, and responsibility for nursing practice: makes decisions; and takes action consistent with the obligation to promote health and to provide optimal care.
5. The nurse owes the same duties to self as to others, including the responsibility to promote health and safety, preserve wholeness of character and integrity, maintain competence, and continue personal and professional growth.
6. The nurse, through individual and collective effort, establishes, maintains , and improves the ethical environment of the work settings and conditions of employment that are conducive to safe, quality health care.
7. The nurse, in all roles and settings, advances the profession through research and scholarly inquiry, professional standards development, and the generation of both nursing and health policy.
8. The nurse collaborates with other health professionals and the public to protect human rights, promote health diplomacy, and reduce health disparities.
9. The profession of nursing, collectively through its professional organizations, must articulate nursing values, maintain the integrity of the profession, and integrate principles of social justice into nursing and health policy.

NONPF (2014 / Updated 2017). Nurse Practitioner Core Competencies Content.

1. Scientific foundations
2. Leadership
3. Quality
4. Practice inquiry
5. Technology and information literacy
6. Policy
7. Health delivery system
8. Ethics
9. Independent practice

ACNM Competencies for Doctoral Education

1. Translate expert clinical knowledge and research relevant to midwifery into best practice models
2. Develop, implement and evaluate projects to improve women’s health care
3. Interpret and apply research related to the national and international distribution and determinants of health and disease of women and newborns
4. Evaluate women’s health policy issues within a variety of jurisdictions (local to federal), and demonstrate the ability to develop remedies to promote health improvement for women and newborns
5. Use effective communication and leadership skills to enhance team function and promote positive change in the health care of women and newborns
6. Analyze theories relevant to the discipline of midwifery, and apply these theories to inform and evaluate the health care of women and newborns
7. Evaluate and use information systems and other technologies to improve the quality and safety of health care for women and newborns
8. Analyze and compare health care delivery and finance models to improve health outcomes for women and newborns