The online MSN Nurse Educator and MSN Health Systems Leadership specializations each require 36 credit hours of graduate coursework.

Core Courses

NURS 551 Contemporary Delivery of Health Care (3 credit hours)
This course presents an overview of the contemporary health care delivery system, with an emphasis on population-focused health care and health promotion and disease prevention. Current issues and policies that address health care disparities; health care organization, financing, and quality; workforce concerns and regulation of practice; and health care information management are examined. Strategies for analyzing and influencing public, professional, and institutional policies relating to health care and its delivery are considered.

NURS 552 Theoretical Foundations for Advanced Nursing (3 credit hours)
This course provides a theoretical orientation to the nature and scope of nursing practice, including nursing's phenomena of concern. Emphasis is given to the components of contemporary nursing knowledge, including metaparadigms (the worldview of a discipline) of nursing, philosophies, conceptual models, and theories. Other theories significant to nursing practice, such as leadership, organizational, change, systems, complex adaptive systems are discussed. Frameworks for ethical decision-making are examined. Application of course concepts to envisioned advanced nursing role is emphasized.

NURS 553 Evidence-Based Practice (3 credit hours)
This course provides a theoretical and practical foundation for using various types of evidence to guide practice. Identifying and critically appraising types of data generated through research in both qualitative and quantitative traditions will be addressed, with a focus on evaluating the adequacy of research questions, methodologies, and presentation findings. The course emphasizes the examination of the essential elements of evidence-based practice, including the formulation of answerable questions to address specific patient problems or situations and the systematic search for research evidence that can be used to answer researchable questions. Strategies for the critical appraisal of validity, relevance and applicability of the research evidence will be presented.

NURS 554 Professional Relationship in Advanced Nursing Roles (3 credit hours)
This course addresses planning, consultation, management and evaluation as related to professional relationships and interventions in all advanced nursing roles. The course specifically considers concepts and competencies that are foundational to establishing and maintaining professional relationships and programs. The concept of complex adaptive systems is presented as the environment within which professional interactions and interventions occur. Servant leadership and appreciative inquiry are presented as a framework for planning, managing, and evaluating therapeutic interventions and programs. Interpersonal and group communication and cultural assessment and competence are emphasized as essential competencies.

NURS 555 Nursing Ethics (3 credit hours)
This course focuses on ethical issues inherent in both nursing and health care delivery and how these are affected by the complexity of nursing roles and the health care system. A framework for addressing ethical dilemmas will be considered. Contemporary ethical dilemmas will be used as the basis for course discussions.

Advanced Nursing Practice Core Courses: Health Systems Leadership Specialization

NURS 641A Nursing Leadership Development (3 credit hours)
Drawing on material from various social science disciplines, this integrated course focuses on research and models of leadership relevant to defining and achieving collective goals.

NURS 642A Information and Quality Management (3 credit hours)
This course focuses on the information management skills essential for effective nursing leadership in complex health care settings. Topics to be addressed include accreditation, clinical information systems, benchmarking, and quality monitoring.

NURS 643A Communication and Relation Management (3 credit hours)
This course addresses the role of the nurse as a health care systems leader in developing and sustaining relationships with employees and other health care providers within complex health care environments. Course content will address communication strategies, relationship management, conflict management, and negotiation skills, and evaluation. Concepts related to legal, regulatory, and ethical aspects of employee hiring, performance evaluation, and termination will be reviewed. Consideration will be given to succession management.

NURS 644A Health Care Management: Financial Stewardship and Decision Support/Strategies (3 credit hours)
This course focuses on the financial management skills essential for effective nursing leadership in complex health care settings. Topics to be addressed include financing, administrative, financial and cost accounting systems, and budget development and oversight.

NURS 645A Legal, Regulatory, and Ethical Health Care Environments (3 credit hours)
This course addresses the role of the nurse as a health systems leader in legal, regulatory, and ethical considerations in health care environments. Complex adaptive systems is used as the framework for examining legal and regulatory constraints that affect care delivery, patient and employee rights and responsibilities, and quality management, including patient safety and risk management. Tension between legal and ethical guidelines will be explored.

NURS 631A Health System Leadership Practicum I (1-3 credit hours)
This practicum integrates knowledge from the didactic courses in the health organization setting.

NURS 632A Health System Leadership Practicum II (1-3 credit hours)
This practicum integrates knowledge from the didactic courses in the health organization setting.

NURS 633A Health System Leadership Practicum III (1-3 credit hours)
This practicum integrates knowledge from the didactic courses in the health organization setting.

Advanced Nursing Practice Core Courses: Nurse Educator Specialization

NURS 523 Advanced Pathophysiology (3 credit hours)
This course seeks to assist learners to understand the cellular pathophysiological basis of disease. The content emphasizes cellular, genetic, and biochemical processes. Pathophysiological and physiological concepts form the basis for critical thinking and decision making when assessing and treating individuals with various disease processes.

NURS 641E Curriculum Development (3 credit hours)
This course focuses on the relationship between a curriculum and institutional and program mission, philosophy, and goals; professional standards; and needs and expectations of an educational program's communities of interest. Current educational paradigms and their implications for both curricula and individual courses will be considered. Students will use their clinical specialty area and intended practice setting as the context for course assignments.

NURS 642E Teaching Learning Strategies (3 credit hours)
This course explores strategies for clinical teaching, classroom/online teaching, and teaching in community settings. The course also addresses adapting content and teaching strategies for different groups of learners (e.g., students, health care consumers/patients, professional colleagues) and learners with different characteristics. The course will include discussion of the use of technology in the educational process. Students will use their clinical specialty area as context for course assignments.

NURS 643E Assessment of Student Learning and Evaluation (3 credit hours)
This course examines the basic principles of assessment of student learning, course and program evaluation, and accreditation. Practical guidelines for evaluation of learning in academic, clinical, and community settings are examined. The course includes content on test construction and evaluation, development and grading of written assignments, evaluation of clinical performance, and evaluation of personal teaching effectiveness. A particular focus of the course is outcomes assessment. Program evaluation and accreditation also are addressed. Social, legal, and ethical issues in evaluation and grading are explored.

NURS 644E Current Issues in Nursing Education and Transition to the Nurse Educator Role (3 credit hours)
This course explores current issues and challenges facing nurse educators. Topics addressed include accreditation issues and polices, academic policies, legal issues in nursing education, dealing with problematic student situations, learning disabilities and students with special needs, cultural considerations in nursing education, and educational technology. Also considered is the complexity of the nurse educator role and academia, as well as strategies for success as a nurse educator. Students use course assignments to explore issues related to their individual clinical specialty area and intended practice setting.

NURS 631E Nursing Educator Practicum I (1-3 credit hours)
The Nurse Education practicum course provides students with individualized opportunities to meet, at the advanced beginning/intermediate level, the core competencies for nurse educators that have been identified by the National League for Nursing (2005). This first practicum course focuses on beginning application of clinical specialty and educational role concepts in an education practice setting of one's choice (60-180 practicum hours).

NURS 632E Nursing Educator Practicum II (1-3 credit hours)
This course is a continuation of the individualized nurse educator practicum experience, emphasizing further functional role development in a clinical specialty area and specific educational setting of choice (60-180 practicum hours).

NURS 633E Nursing Educator Practicum III (1-3 credit hours)
This course is a continuation of the individualized nurse educator practicum experience, emphasizing further functional role development in a clinical specialty area and specific educational setting of choice (60-180 practicum hours).

To learn more about courses in the online MSN degree, request more information or call us today at (866) 295-3105.