Courses

This course examines professional issues for the transition into the baccalaureate nursing role. Professional core values associated with being a caring and ethical professional nurse will be developed further. Emphasis will be placed on ethics, patient safety, collaboration and teamwork, quality care, and health promotion while analyzing key issues within the healthcare system.

This course covers the principles of micro and macroeconomics as applied to the healthcare industry and examines how healthcare demand differs from that of other goods. Major topic areas include identifying and measuring the cost and benefit of marketing and government solutions to various healthcare issues, the role risk plays in the demand for and supply of health insurance in determining impacts on private profit and social economic well-­being.

This course examines the essential elements of, and process for, evidence-based practice in nursing and healthcare.  Students will learn how to access, appraise, and utilize both quantitative and qualitative research and other sources of evidence to make informed clinical decisions that improve patient safety and quality of care.

This course includes in-depth study of local, state, and national policies affecting the health of populations. Regulatory and legislative issues related to advanced practice nursing are also emphasized. The nurse’s role in the legislative/political process will be examined.

This course examines and applies theories of organizational behavior, systems thinking, and leadership to quality improvement strategies that minimize errors and optimize positive clinical outcomes. Participation in selected patient safety and quality improvement initiatives provide opportunity to apply and evaluate the relevance of theoretical concepts to real world healthcare challenges.

This course focuses on the concepts of assessing an individual’s health status by utilizing critical thinking skills and the ability to gather and analyze data using a patient-centered approach. Emphasis will be placed upon a holistic approach to integrating pathophysiology with gathering a complete health history, including physical, psychosocial, and cultural dimensions, therapeutic interview skills, and performing a comprehensive physical exam.

This course covers the principles of transcultural and culturally competent nursing. Students will explore the ways that culture impacts health and health care and begin to recognize their own cultural experiences and how those experiences shape who they are and their healthcare core values.  Students will become comfortable providing health care to a wide variety of people from diverse backgrounds.

This course explores health information and informatics concepts encountered in healthcare settings. Course content includes; healthcare information technology, concepts, terminology, and key health information systems and technology. Students will evaluate health information systems and their roles in patient safety, safe medication administration, maintaining patient privacy, data security and efficacy of healthcare processes.

This course focuses on the role of the nurse in the community and public health settings, with an introduction to national and international community health practices.  Using an evidence-based framework, students will explore epidemiology, assessment, health promotion, and disease prevention for aggregate populations on a local to a global scale.

This course provides practicum experience in community and public health nursing, focusing on the application of public health and nursing principles in the care of individuals, families, and populations in a variety of community-based settings.

This course will include a senior project that is a purposeful collection and presentation of materials that communicate the student’s academic and professional development throughout the RN to BSN program. The portfolio is designed to foster student empowerment through analysis and critique of one’s own work and self-awareness through reflection and self-evaluation. It measures achievement of course and program outcomes.