Nursing: Doctor of Nursing Practice
Doctor of Nursing Practice
About the Degree
The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program offers doctoral preparation to advanced practice registered nurses whose career emphasis is on furthering their role as scholars and leaders. One of the particular strengths of our DNP program is that the courses at The University of Akron are taught by a complimentary blend of DNP and PhD prepared faculty, thus offering the student exposure to the best of both clinical/professional and academic/research scholarship. The program is offered in a hybrid format. This means that there is a blend of intensive face to face, distance and/or asynchronous learning modalities that are determined based on the course/content/semester. The student can complete the program in two years of full time study. Part-time options are also available.
What you would study
DNP student courses and outcomes are designed to meet The DNP Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice (2006). The program outcomes are based on these Essentials and are as follows:
- Use appropriate theories and concepts to identify health-related phenomena of interest
- Design and deliver interventions that can withstand scientific analysis
- Evaluate health care delivery and nursing practices using sound evaluation principles
- Use evaluation and other methods to account for quality of care and patient safety for focus populations
- Critically appraise and/or use sources informing best evidence, i.e. epidemiology, statistics, health data, and/or methodologies
- Deliver and evaluate care processes and outcomes based on best evidence
- Analyze and define critical choices among health care technologies and information systems toward the betterment of care processes and outcomes
- Understand the dynamics of health care policy and financing at the organizational and national levels
- Provide or assist in the leadership of collaborative, inter-professional teams in health care delivery
Salary and Career Outlook
Students currently in the program plan to stay in their current place of employment with expanded roles as scholars and leaders. Their expanded roles will focus on leadership, quality improvement and implementing evidence based practice projects in their area of specialty.
Why Akron?
The program is offered in a hybrid format. This means that there is a blend of intensive face-to-face, and asynchronous learning modalities that are determined based on the course/content/semester. The student can complete the program in two years of full time study. We call it our 2-2-2 program. Our program is also more affordable than many others in the area.
Our program was designed to meet the needs of working advanced practice nurses. Our program can be completed in two years with two classes per semester with two intensive weekends each semester. The remainder is delivered online.
Our DNP students are currently working and most stay in their current place of employment. They are advanced practice nurses at surrounding hospitals and health care facilities with an occasional out of state student.
Contact Information
Contact Information:
Linda Shanks, PhD, DNP, RN
shanks@uakron.edu
330-972-6699
