By Day 3 of Week 4

Post a brief explanation of the role of the nurse with a practice doctorate. Be specific. Explain the expectations associated with obtaining this degree, including how these expectations might be different for a nurse who holds a different degree. Then, explain how these considerations relate to your motivation to pursue a DNP, including a brief description of how your role as a DNP-prepared nurse will meet a potential organization’s need to address a gap in practice or implement a practice change. Discuss any experiences you have had in addressing a gap in practice or a practice change within an organization. Be specific.

By Day 6 of Week 4

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses and respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days by suggesting an additional perspective on what it means to be a nurse with a practice doctorate, offer support to the expectations with obtaining the degree that your colleague posted, or expand upon your colleague’s post.

Here is my initial post:

Discussion Post 

The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project is a climax for doctoral studies and presents an opportunity for candidates to translate their acquired knowledge into practice (Zaccagnini & Pechacek, 2019). The DNP project is also an integral part of the integrative practice experience. It reflects the area of specialization and allows one to dig deeper and develop a project focusing on clinical practice. The DNP project is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate mastery in the advanced nursing specialty. Its goal is to inform the methods one would use to deliver care and educate the chosen community or organization members. It can address a gap in practice or implement a practice change. 

A gap in practice is an existing problem or an opportunity for improvement in several areas, including knowledge, practice, and skills (Robinson et al., 2020). Gaps in practice form the foundation for justification, design, implementation, and assessment of educational activities. Educational activities can be clinical, patient care issues, professional such as leadership, or other areas that can improve learner. A practice change is a collaborative and often multidisciplinary process that utilizes the best available evidence to improve healthcare (Curtis et al., 2017). It includes various efforts ranging from linking education to practice and evidence, developing tools for care improvement, and developing improved care models. 

Nurses with practice doctorate have advanced practice knowledge to provide effective and safe patient care. Nurses who decide to become practitioners can diagnose, treat, issue prescriptions, order various tests, and educate patients about their healthcare. These expectations from a nurse with DNP may be different from others holding a different degree, such as Doctor of Philosophy because it is a practice-focused degree program. My focus on practice was my primary motivation for getting into this area. In the past, I have been involved in creating awareness concerning safe prescribing practices of opioids in a healthcare facility, which was a severe gap in practice. 

Please make an in depth reply to this post  from Janisset and provide evidence in APA 7 format:

DNP program is one of the most important programs in the nursing practice. It prepares nurses for greater engagement in the health care practice. In this DNP program, I anticipate improving my professional skills and bringing change to healthcare practice. The degree will be essential in promoting better management of patients in health care. More specifically, the program will equip me with the crucial leadership skills necessary to advance better healthcare services management (Sebach & Chunta, 2018). Therefore, enrolling in this program was the best decision and am ready and willing to pursue it to the end. I know it will be a tough journey; however, it cannot be compared with the benefits of the DNP degree. The main reason why I chose this program is to advance my nursing knowledge and improve my skills.

There is a huge difference between the DNP program and n PhD degree in nursing. However, many people often confuse the two for the same thing. It must be noted that the DNP is a degree whose focus is on clinical practice. It seeks to advance nurses’ understanding of the nursing practice, emphasising clinical and leadership skills. Therefore, the DNP graduate will be prepared to help translate research into evidence-based standards of care Fang & Bednash, 2017). secondly, the DNP graduates can lead interdisciplinary care teams and enhance the care systems. Furthermore, a DNP graduate can evaluate the outcomes among specific patient populations. 

PhD program focuses mainly on academic research, and thus, it prepares nurses to develop new knowledge through research. The primary roles of a PhD graduate include leading research teams. They also play a crucial role in designing and implementing studies that help in addressing disease trajectories. Another key part of the PhD graduates is leading teams of nurses who focus on evaluating statistics, data analysis, and scientific theory. They work on research projects within the health care practice (Blush III, Mason & Timmerman, 2017). Therefore, the major difference between the two programs come in their roles. The DNP program is more focused on the nursing practice and leadership in health care. However, the PhD program is more focused on health care research, data analysis, and scientific theory development (Lindell & Hagler, 2017). Based on these differences, I concentrated on the DNP program because I wanted to bring change through leadership to the health care practice. 

The degree requirements for completing the DNP program are all contained in the DNP essentials, which focuses on eight key areas. These areas are critical in bringing change to the health care practice by involving several programs, including interprofessional collaboration with other health care teams (Chism, 2021). To accomplish the various courses in this program, I need to get closer to my mentor and follow the guidelines provided for DNP programs. Furthermore, there is a need to decide on the practicum site where the DNP project will be implemented. It is also important to start thinking about a practice problem in health care that will eventually be developed into a DNP project. 

References

Sebach, A. M., & Chunta, K. S. (2018). Exploring the experiences of DNP-prepared nurses enrolled in a DNP-to-PhD pathway program. Nursing education perspectives, 39(5), 302-304.

Fang, D., & Bednash, G. D. (2017). Identifying barriers and facilitators to future nurse faculty careers for DNP students. Journal of Professional Nursing, 33(1), 56-67.

Blush III, R. R., Mason, H. L., & Timmerman, N. M. (2017). Pursuing the clinical track faculty role: from clinical expert to educator. AACN advanced critical care, 28(3), 243-249.

Chism, L. A. (2021). The DNP Degree: Past, Current, and Future Trends. The Doctor of Nursing Practice: A Guidebook for Role Development and Professional Issues, 383.

Lindell, D., & Hagler, D. (2017). PhD or DNP? defining the path to your career destination: learn how to choose the degree that’s right for you. American Nurse Today, 12(2), 36-39.

please create a second response to this post by Kimberly:

DNP PREPARED NURSE

The role of a nurse with a practice doctorate degree is to provide direct patient care, often as an APN (Advanced Practice Nurse). The APN roles played by such nurses include; psychiatric nursing roles, midwifery, and anesthetics (Beeber et al., 2016). Besides, a nurse with a practice doctorate degree carries out leadership responsibilities within the health care systems, including management and overseeing the lateral patient care integration process (Beeber et al., 2016). Notably, whether the nurses are healthcare system leaders or clinical APRNs, practice doctorate nurses perform roles such as team leadership, responding to safety and quality healthcare issues, and solving healthcare navigation challenges among special patient populations. Besides, the nurses participate in quality improvement and impose new initiatives to achieve improved outcomes. Compared to other APRNS, nurses with DNP degrees have better assessment skills. Besides, they can efficiently deal with system-level problems such as finance and quality of care within the healthcare system.

There are different expectations associated with obtaining a DNP degree. One of such expectations is preparedness for advanced clinical roles as healthcare policy leaders and practitioners. Getting a DNP degree requires individuals to understand the significance of interprofessional collaboration while incorporating clinical expertise into the real world. Besides, they are expected to integrate research into their daily practice to improve healthcare outcomes. For one, to obtain a DNP degree, they must have mastery in a specific area within the field of nursing, have advanced nursing knowledge, and have maximum expertise. Besides, they should understand nursing, psychology, ethics, biology, and physiology. One of the significant differences concerning the expectations of obtaining a DNP degree and having a different degree such as a Ph.D. is that DNP expects nurses to improve healthcare outcomes through data-driven decision-making strategies. In contrast, a Ph.D. degree expects a nurse to use research-driven results to ensure advanced nursing. Moreover, the program faculty of DNP involves expertise in general and academic practice while that of Ph.D. requires a student to have expertise in expanding scientific nursing knowledge.

The considerations relate to my motivation to pursue a DNP in various ways. I aim to acquire adequate skills in healthcare to effectively implement evidence-based interventions to enhance healthcare outcomes among patients and the general public. Besides, I aspire to develop expertise in healthcare through general practice and academics. My role as a DNP-prepared nurse will meet a potential organization’s need to address a documentation gap in nursing practice. Most healthcare organizations encounter documentation issues in their systems as most electronic patient records have omissions and errors. Therefore as a DNP-practice nurse, I will address these challenges by educating nurses within the healthcare organization on the significance of updating patient records. I will also educate them on how to keep accurate and complete health records to avoid issues such as duplicated and missing information. Proper documentation within a healthcare facility is vital for making appropriate healthcare decisions and administering effective care to patients by ensuring they are given the correct medication and referred to the relevant specialist.

As an information nurse, I was part of a team that addressed a gap noticed in one of the organization’s documentation systems. The organization had huge documentation challenges that led to errors and mismatch of patients’ information. Nurses were not keen on keeping proper records of patients’ information whenever they visited the facility. Together with the team, we interviewed the medical staff, including quality control specialists, doctors, and nurses, to gather information on documentation during each shift. From the interview, I realized that the organization management did not impose effective measures in the legal documentation of patient information. Thus, most of the staff took the issue for granted. Afterward, we created reminder applications within the organization’s electronic health record system to alert nurses whenever documentation was due or overdue.

Reference

Beeber. S. at al., (2016). Determining the Role of the Nurse with a Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree. Research Brief