Doctor of Nursing Practice

Message from the Director

Nurse of the Future

The health and well being of citizens in our country is truly in the hands of nurses. With a soon-to-be shortage of primary care providers, and grave shortages in nursing faculty, advanced practice nurses, and nurse practitioners affecting nursing education and the healthcare of the nation, nurses will become increasingly responsible for primary health care practice.

The Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program at the University of St. Francis will prepare you, an advanced practice nurse, for greater leadership in health care delivery, administration, and education. The American Academy of Nurses (AAN) calls advanced practice nursing leaders “Edge Runners”, and has gathered examples of new Edge Runner leadership that are influencing the direction and nature of health care delivery nationwide. See what AAN says about opportunities available to you as a doctorally-prepared nursing leader, and check out what AAN has to say about our own Health and Wellness Center, designated an Edge Runner for its advanced practice nurse managed care in 2008. The DNP is the nurse of the future!

The University of St. Francis College of Nursing has taken another leadership role in advancing evidence-based graduate nursing education, advanced nursing practice and healthcare delivery.

USF’s DNP program is one of only 120 in the nation and the fourth in the State of Illinois.

DNP degree will prepare graduates to provide the most advanced level of nursing care for individuals and communities based on evidence-based scientific, medical and nursing research and practice guidelines.

As a graduate of USF’s DNP program, you will be an advanced practice nurse of the highest caliber, fully prepared as a primary health care provider to practice in health care settings that serve our must vulnerable citizens, including the poor, elderly, working families, the marginalized, and the uninsured. A special education concentration is available to prepare you to educate tomorrow’s nurses.

The DNP program is a natural outgrowth of the university’s highly acclaimed graduate nursing programs that have sustained a 100 percent pass rate on certification exams over the past three years.

Accessible programming

The DNP program is delivered online, and is accessible to graduate nursing students nationwide. Be ready to learn the newest and latest treatment protocols. DNP nursing faculty members, many of them EdgeRunners themselves, bring cutting edge technology and practice to your learning experience.

The DNP student will provide and direct primary health care to individual patients and families, promote the public’s health, manage vulnerable populations who experience health disparities, manage and direct provider services, and influence health care policy. The elderly, patients with chronic physical and mental illnesses, families at-risk, and women and children in violence shelters are proposed emphases of study, but students may specialize in vulnerable populations they plan to work with upon graduation.

Students may also select a Nursing Education Concentration, which will prepare graduates for the National League for Nursing Certification Examination, allowing them to function as faculty in nursing programs across the country.

You’ll drill deeply into your particular areas of interest by conducting your own evidence-based research, using principles of Appreciative Inquiry, which applies Franciscan ideals of respect and nonintrusion.