DNP 840 Topic 7 Discussion Question Two
DNP 840 Topic 7 Discussion Question Two
Reflecting back on this and all previous courses, how has your thinking about your DPI Project changed? What will you take from this course and apply directly to your DPI Project?
A DNP project is the umbrella term used to describe a scholarly project with the express purpose of translating evidence into practice. You may also hear it referred to as a final or research DNP project. Your DNP project will reflect your specialization/area of interest, allowing you to delve deep and create a project focused on clinical practice. You will use your DNP project to demonstrate mastery of your advanced nursing specialty.
Fortunately, given the wide breadth of clinical nursing practice, your choices for a DNP project are nearly limitless.
For example, your DNP project may be a practice portfolio that explores the impact or outcomes of nursing practice, or it may be a practice change initiative represented by a program evaluation. It may be a quality improvement project, a consulting project, or the evaluation of a new practice model. It may be a practice topic dissemination, a systemic review, or a manuscript submitted for publication—and that’s just to start.
Although DNP projects may take on various forms, depending on your college/university’s requirements and your area of advanced nursing practice, all DNP projects have three things in common: They all include planning, implementation, and evaluation components.
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These components reflect the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s (AACN) DNP Essentials, which states that a DNP project should be able to successfully integrate some or all of the following into practice:
- Focus on a change that impacts healthcare outcomes through either direct or indirect care
- Have a systems (micro-, meso-, or macro-level) or population/aggregate focus
- Implement the appropriate area of practice
- Include a plan for sustainability (e.g., financial, systems, or political realities)
- Include an evaluation of processes and/or outcomes
All projects should be designed so that processes/outcomes can be evaluated to guide practice and policy, and all should provide a foundation for future practice scholarship.
The goal of the DNP project is to inform the methods you will use to deliver care and educate others in your chosen population/community. You will use the DNP project to demonstrate your ability to lead and practice at the highest level of clinical nursing practice.
You will be asked to integrate a number of skills into your final project:
- Expertise in reflective practice
- Expertise in your area of interest
- Independent practice inquiry (identifying existing problems/needs in nursing practice and/or healthcare systems)
- The ability to evaluate, translate, and use research and evidence to improve health and quality of care outcomes
- Organizational and systems leadership skills (developing, implementing, and evaluating interventions to improve outcomes for diverse populations and/or communities)
- Knowledge of advanced healthcare policy, ethics, and law to develop a population-based program based on the best available and current evidence