School of Nursing

The Doctor of Nursing Practice Program delivers an innovative curriculum from post-baccalaureate to doctorate, emphasizing healthcare engineering and interdisciplinary collaboration among faculty, hospitals, community leaders, and policy makers.

This DNP program is uniquely situated to provide leadership in solving complex clinical problems through its partnership with the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering, the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, the Purdue University Homeland Security Institute, and the Center on Aging and the Life Course.

The program of study centers on knowledge and skill building in the areas of scholarly practice, practice improvement, innovation and testing of care delivery models, evaluation of health outcomes, health policy, leadership in healthcare delivery and quality improvement, and clinical expertise for advanced nursing education.

The DNP allows for three types of prospective students: post-baccalaureate RNs, current MS in nursing students, and advanced practice nurses who have completed their MS degrees.

The post-baccalaureate program incorporates the existing MS curriculum, which totals 46-49 credit hours, and incorporates the AACN's (1996) recommended thematic areas of Graduate Nursing Core, Advanced Practice Nursing Core, and Specialty Core. These hours are added to 37 credit hours in the DNP to total 83 post-baccalaureate semester credit hours. Included are 630 hours of supervised clinical preceptorship (MS program) and an 896-hour residency (DNP program) for a total of 1,526 hours of supervised clinical practice, a health policy residency, and cognate residencies.

Unique features of the Purdue DNP nursing program include:

• Purdue University/West Lafayette Interdisciplinary Collaborators: Health Sciences, Health and Kinesiology, Pharmacy, Gerontology, Health Communication, Krannert School of Management, Computer Technology, Homeland Security, and the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering. This collaboration offers many opportunities for innovative projects.
• Implementation of collaborative practice team education and internships in which DNP students, engineering graduate students, and others share coursework and work together on major internship experiences that research and implement evidence-based practice.
• Advanced information technology and Computer Sciences to improve quality of healthcare delivery systems.
• Access to multidisciplinary faculty and researchers in specified areas of clinical research.
• Clinical preceptorship with multidisciplinary teams caring for underserved populations in rural and urban healthcare settings.
• Strategic leadership opportunities in the school's nurse-managed clinics as well as HMO's and local/regional healthcare facilities.
• Opportunity to tailor cognate courses in areas of sub-specialization such as rural health, pharmacology, practice design and management, or public health/homeland security.
• Sequential curriculum design, post-baccalaureate to DNP, emphasizing health promotion, disease prevention, chronic disease management, and evidence-based practice.
• Flexibility of leaving the program after the master's degree is completed and re-entry for the last two years at a later date.
• Opportunity for part-time study, which allows you to maintain professional employment while pursuing an advanced degree.

Doctor of Nursing Practice Program Goals

Upon successful completion of the DNP, the graduate will be able to:

1. Evaluate systems responses to health and illness as a basis for the promotion, restoration and maintenance of health and functional abilities and the prevention of illness
2. Integrate advanced knowledge of nursing theories, related sciences and humanities, and methods of inquiry in the care diverse populations
3. Design quality, cost effective nursing interventions based on the knowledge of interrelationships among person, environment, health and nursing
4. Measure outcomes to evaluate nursing and health systems in diverse settings
5. Demonstrate role competence as a Doctor of Nursing Practice in providing care to individuals and families including rural and vulnerable populations
6. Translate research to support evidenced-based practice for diverse populations
7. Initiate changes in the healthcare system through the implementation and evaluation of health policies that strengthen the healthcare delivery system
8. Apply systems concepts to prevent and solve complex healthcare delivery problems

NOTE: If you are not a Nurse Practitioner you are required to take advanced pathophysiology, advanced health assessment and advanced pharmacology

For more information, please contact Jenny Franklin at jfranklin@purdue.edu or 765-494-9248.