Advance your practice with an MSN degree

This course assesses the various roles of the master's prepared nurse. The influence of the health care delivery systems, health care policy, diversity, ethics, quality, safety, theory, evidence based practice, and information systems on the role of the master's prepared nurse will be explored.

Theories, principles, and strategies of population-based health care are used to design, implement, and evaluate services and plans of care to promote, maintain, and restore health in a defined population. Students focus on population aggregates in structured or unstructured settings across service environments. Strategies to evaluate outcomes and costs are emphasized. Prerequisite NURS 612 or 613.

This course focuses on the concepts, principles, and application of pharmacotherapeutics used in the management of health problems encountered in primary care. Emphasis is placed on theories and principles of pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and pharmacogenetics, which provide a foundation for critical thinking, and the application of research finding. The focus on pharmacology is aimed at the treatment of acute and chronic health problems in populations over the life span. Prerequisite NURS 612 or 613. Note, this course has proctored exam(s).

The course provides an extensive overview of leadership in the U.S. health services system. The focus of the course will be on the role health services leadership plays in the delivery of healthcare services, to include managing with professionals, financial management, services utilization, and other aspects of the U.S. healthcare system. The student will explore the key theoretical and practical elements of leadership as well as current issues clarifying how the U.S. health services system is organized, managed, and financed.

This course will explore the essential conceptual and analytical understanding of health policymaking and politics, including their impact on health administration and leadership. Selected policy issues will be explored through the application of political concepts and behavioral models, including a system model of policymaking. The emphasis will be on understanding the health leaders approach to the policymaking system, become involved in it, and work through it to attain their objectives and those of their organization.

This course provides an in-depth study of the physiological changes and responses to altered health states and their impact on the functional status of patients. Students will focus on the essential knowledge of human health and disease across the lifespan. Pathophysiological theories and evidence-based research serve as a basis for applying content to population groups. Prerequisite NURS 612 or 613. Note, this course has proctored exam(s).

This course builds upon the student's previous health assessment knowledge offering more advanced health assessment content to provide the foundation for advanced professional nursing roles. This course emphasizes knowledge of health assessment, including physical, psychosocial, spiritual health assessment, risk assessment, and functional assessment in diverse populations in the promotion of health and prevention of disease. To maintain a nursing focus on patient responses to health, illness, or the threat of illness, the nurse must exhibit effective communication and client teaching, which is incorporated throughout the course. The importance of effective documentation and health record keeping is included. Prerequisite NURS 612 or 613.

This course will explore and analyze methods to improve nursing practice and health outcomes. Collaborative efforts and ethical concerns are considered. Emphasis is placed on critically evaluating evidence-based practice and quality assurance initiatives.

The purpose of this capstone course is to provide the student with the opportunity to examine the role of the master's prepared nurse in a health care or education setting. Using a combination approach of seminar and precepted clinical experience, the student focuses on the integration and application of major concepts covered throughout the graduate nursing program and assists in preparation for comprehensive evaluation. The student is assigned to a health care or educational setting under the direction of an experienced master's prepared nurse executive/educator/practitioner for the practicum portion of the course. Eighty (80) precepted clinical hours are required.

This course covers the broad spectrum of strategic issues in healthcare including policies, guidelines, standards, processes, and controls required to manage and implement enterprise-level information. Treating information as a strategic asset to healthcare organizations, processes to manage various risks to the quality of information and ensure its appropriate use are covered.

This course explores requirements for clinical workflows in a variety of inpatient, outpatient, and emergency healthcare environments. It covers the documentation, review, mapping, and diagramming of clinical workflow information and processes. The course also covers the linkages between the improvement of patient care to workflow mapping and change management, as part of evidence based decision making in healthcare.

This course addresses the process of retrieving, analyzing, and reporting intelligence to make healthcare decisions. It covers the techniques of extracting, transforming and loading data from a myriad of operational databases into corporate data warehouses, as well means to ensure that decision making is based on clean and reliable information. The course also includes ways to report the healthcare intelligence gathered.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with the fundamental concepts and calculations associated with financial accounting and managerial accounting within a healthcare organization. Students will study the foundational aspects of financial accounting with a primary focus on financial statements and the uses of the information in these statements. Students will also study the functional aspects of managerial accounting to include cost behavior, cost allocation, pricing, planning, budgeting, profit analysis, and performance evaluation. Application of these concepts will include analysis of case studies.

In this course the student will develop a strong foundation of health law, enabling them to deal with common legal and practical moral and ethical issues facing the healthcare organization on a daily basis. Topics will include statutory laws, rules and regulations, review of tort laws, criminal law, contract law, civil procedures and trial practice. The student will examine numerous legal, moral, and ethical issues.

The student will examine demographic measurements, epidemiological methods, outcomes assessment, health promotion, and disease prevention from a global perspective.

This course provides a framework for an in-depth understanding of day-to-day, practical approaches/aspects of problems/challenges that impact the human resource management field. Topics include recruiting, hiring, training, retaining, rewarding, and promoting employees; compensation and benefits; employment planning, performance management systems, and succession planning; labor relations; and managing organizational relationships.

This course addresses the need for planned change focused on an organization's ability to compete strategically. The framework of consultation as helping organizations reach a level of optimum performance will be applied. Topics addressed include individual, team, and organization-wide interventions that can raise productivity/quality, improve competitiveness, increase skills, morale, and commitment.

This course explores the elements of leadership and delineates the principles necessary for success in a global environment. Discussion of the role and function of leadership will include an in-depth analysis and study of needs impacting individuals, organizations, and society. This course provides students with leadership skills and competencies on which to build an individual model for effective leadership.

Learning theories and instructional design models are the two fundamental pillars for the field of instructional design. In this course, students will study the learning theories and philosophies that formed, influenced, and supported this field. Students will also study instructional systems theories, models, and systematic approaches to instructional design. In this course, students will apply these theories, strategies, and instructional models to create a learning, instructional design or training event in their chosen settings, including business, industry, government, healthcare, and classroom education. At the end of this course, students will make a plan on how to prepare for an instructional design career.

In this course, students will study the practices employed to manage and deliver instructional content in an online environment. Students will interact with a functional Learning Management System (LMS) to manage the design, development, delivery, and evaluation of reusable learning content.

This course presents fundamental principles and practices for evaluating courses and programs, with a focus on formative and summative evaluation and criterion-referenced testing. Students will explore evaluation models and theories, create a learner satisfaction survey, create criterion-referenced tests, create grading rubrics, and work with a data set to interpret data and make recommendations to improve a course or unit of instruction. Projects completed in the course will become part of the student's portfolio.