Doctor of Nursing Practice builds upon master programs by offering an educational basis in quality enhancement, system leadership, and evidence-based practice. It is the peak of practice-based nursing degrees and prepares the advanced practice nurses on skills, attributes, and knowledge necessary for fully accountable and comprehensive practice with patients. The nurses who acquire the Doctorate of Nursing Practice possess the highest level of nursing expertise who work in a clinical setting or Advanced Practice Setting that is direct patient care or in leadership and administration setting.
History of Doctor of Nursing Practice
In the history of nursing, nurses had limited options, as seen in the early 20th century, nurses would earn doctorates outside nursing as there was no doctoral education for nurses. Doctor of Education Degree (EdD) and Ph.D. were some of the doctorates the nurses received outside nursing, and they were earned on the basic science fields such as anatomy and physiology. Around the mid-1930s where nurses were allowed to earn a Ph.D. in their nursing fields but still, this was limited thus most pursued Ph.D. in psychosocial areas. This further differentiated the nursing doctoral programs by the type of degree offered; the academic research degree (Ph.D.) and the professional doctorate such as a doctor of nursing science (DNS).
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Over the years, the distinction between the Ph.D. and DNS became a blur. Therefore the America Association of Colleges of Nursing formed a cadre to examine the current status of doctorates in nursing practice in the year 2002. This led to the endorsement of a position statement on the practice doctorate in nursing by the America Association of Colleges of Nursing in the year 2004. The decision that the AACN made was initially based on research to assess the need for a clinical practice doctorate with specific stakeholder, which included education, nursing, and research (Ketefian and Redman, 2015). A proposal was conducted in the year 2015 to change the educational level required for Advanced Practice Nursing to the Doctor of Nursing Practice Degree from the master’s degree which was voted by the related organizations.
Current and Future State of Doctor of Practice Nurse
Many Advanced Nursing Practice programs are transitioning from Master’s to doctoral degrees as educational programs are continuing to award Master’s degree for APRN graduates. Postgraduate degrees are currently a requirement for Advanced Practice Certification. Therefore, DNP programs are enrolling students with the number of schools growing along with DNP graduates (Auerbach, 2015). DPN programs are now available in almost 50 states with the most programs available in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania, among others. It is known that in years to come, the nurses will be allowed into the nursing practice only when they have the Doctor of Practice Nurse. This is authorized the America Association of Nurse Anesthetists as well as the National Organization of Clinical Nurse (Edwards et al., 2018).
Role of DPN-prepared APNs in Transformative Healthcare
The Advanced Practice Nurses has identified the need for additional in areas of evidenced-based practice, quality improvement, and system management. In this case, the nursing professionals have been transformed in various ways through the DNP education, such as creating and adopting new roles in nursing. Moreover, as the health industry becomes complex, nurses are required to have strong leadership skills for them to continue to improve their standards and that of their colleagues. Nurses are needed to work together with the other healthcare practitioners to formulate plans that will improve the healthcare services to meet patient’s needs (Lathrop and Hodnicki, 2014). In this case, the nurses that have gone through the DPN programs can utilize the leadership skills to enhance the consumers’ outcomes. They create unique models of health care delivery that will fulfill the bulging service demands and policy developments that will advance the services and reduce practice obstacles.
Benefits of DPN degree
DPN nurses can use science-based concepts to comprehend the features of health and health care delivery better. Besides, DPN nurses have an opportunity to enjoy the professional benefits that are very difficult to enjoy when having an undergraduate degree. They are also able to obtain different levels of a top-level position such as administrator to managerial and others. Moreover, DPN nurses earn higher salaries, which exceed the MSN nurses salary; therefore, this motivates nurses to go for DPN programs (Shelton, 2016). In conclusion, DPN programs are essential in nursing, and it does not only benefit the nurses who take it, but also the health care industry in general as it improves the outcome of the services provided. Therefore Doctor of Practice Nurse is an essential and appropriate program in healthcare and nursing field.
References
Auerbach, D. I., Martsolf, G. R., Pearson, M. L. … &Lee, Y. (2015). The DNP by 2015. RAND Health Quarterly, 5 (1), 3
Edwards N., Caddington J., Erler C., &Kirkpartrick J., (2018). The impact of the role of doctor of nursing practice nurses on healthcare and leadership. Medical Research Archives , 6(4).
Ketefian S. & Redman R.W. (2015). A critical examination of developments in nursing doctoral education in the United States. Rev Lat Am Enfermagem , 23(3), 363-371.
Lathrop B., &Hodnicki D.R. (2014). The affordable care act: Primary care and the doctor of nursing practice nurse . The online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 19 (2), 7.
Shelton G. (2016). Pursuing nursing’s terminal clinical degree, the dnp: the practical benefits. Journal of Haematology oncology Pharmacy, 9 (3).
