Onwu, 

What is the impact of the DNP-prepared healthcare systems leader on the healthcare systems of today?

 In 2004, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) created the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree to prepare advanced practice nurses (APRNs) such as the Nurse Practitioners, Clinical Nurse Specialists, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists, and Nurse-Midwives for leadership positions in clinical settings (Beeber et al., 2019). This coincided with, the Institute of medicine’s (IOM), report on medical errors, quality, and safety requesting healthcare transformation through interprofessional, evidence-based care, and clinical leadership by nurses. Hence, the DNP nurse as the clinical expert and leader has taken leadership roles in healthcare, leading, communicating, innovating, and empowering nurses, and patients, being patient advocates, ensuring that professional nursing voice is heard during policy development, evidence-based care is provided to patients to improve patient outcomes, and safety (Boswell et al., 2021).

The DNP nurse commits to safer health care and prevention, being able to influence health outcomes through improved quality of care, influence, and innovation; He or She uses her strengths such as communication, leadership, and ability to change others' thinking to influence nursing practice (Boswell et al., 2021).

How do you anticipate integrating this role into your current or future career? In your opinion, what is needed for successful professional identity formation in DNP students to achieve healthcare systems leadership roles after graduation?

As a clinical expert, the DNP nurse stands out among colleagues being able to guide, mentor, and teach other nurses, making sure that nursing practice is guided by research evidence. The DNP nurse being well diverse in the translation of research evidence into practice leads to quality improvement initiatives to translate evidence into practice to improve patient outcomes and safety.

For successful identity formation in DNP students to achieve healthcare systems leadership roles after graduation, the DNP nurse helps to sustain research evidence, advancing implementation science in the practice setting making sure that evidence-based practice changes become standard practice and patient outcomes are improved (McNett et al., 2021).

Part II: For Students Implementing at the Practicum Site 

• Please state your practice question in PICOT format

For this week's implementation update, please share an update on your implementation progress and your plan for formative evaluation. You may want to watch the short video on formative and summative evaluation under the Explore section this week. Discuss any successes, barriers, or challenges you are experiencing with your project implementation

Practice Question: In adult patients aged 18 years and older with a diagnosis of depression, will implementing the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Guidelines for exercising impact depression scores over 8-10 weeks?

My implementation is progressing well as planned, and no challenges or barriers were encountered. To assess implementation fidelity by ensuring that every staff member follows the NICE guidelines for walking exercise, to limit variations that may affect implementation outcomes, the DNP student will use a checklist to audit each staff member instructing project participants on when to walk, how often, how long, and how to document the walking exercise on MyFitnessPal app. The DNP student will give feedback to the staff members after the audit and during huddles or staff meetings.

References

Beeber, Palmer, C., Waldrop, J., Lynn, M. R., & Jones, C. B. (2019). The role of Doctor of Nursing Practice-prepared nurses in practice settings. Nursing Outlook, 67(4), 354–364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2019.02.006

Boswell, Mintz-Binder, R., Batcheller, J., Allen, P., & Baker, K. A. (2021). Capturing the impact of the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree on West Texas Health Care. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 52(4), 192–197. https://doi.org/10.3928/00220124-20210315-08

McNett, Masciola, R., Sievert, D., & Tucker, S. (2021). Advancing evidence‐based practice through implementation science: Critical contributions of Doctor of Nursing Practice‐ and Doctor of Philosophy‐prepared nurses. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, 18(2), 93–101. https://doi.org/10.1111/wvn.12496