Purpose

Students in the SPU DNP program will complete a scholarly project that demonstrates clinical scholarship as a requirement for graduation. The project demonstrates the student’s ability to translate evidence into practice and serves as a foundation for future scholarly practice within the practice setting.

According to the AACN Task Force on the Implementation of the DNP (2015), the DNP Scholarly Project should:

• Focus on a change that impacts healthcare outcomes either through direct or indirect care.
• Have a systems (micro-, meso-, or macro-level) and/or population/aggregate focus.
• Demonstrate implementation in the appropriate arena or area of practice.
• Include a plan for sustainability (e.g. financial, systems or political realities, not only theoretical abstractions).
• Include an evaluation of processes and/or outcomes (formative and/or summative).
• Be designed so that processes/outcomes will be evaluated to guide practice and policy.
• Provide a foundation for future scholarly practice in advanced practice nursing.

Description of Project

The DNP Scholarly Project reflects the scholarly work completed, applying skills and knowledge obtained throughout the program. Under faculty guidance, DNP students collaborate with clinical organizations and agencies to address real-world practice issues and problems. The nature and focus of the projects will vary. Projects relate to advanced practice in the nursing specialty and benefit a group, population, or community rather than an individual patient. Suitable projects are evidence based and arise from needs of the agency or system. The scholarly project allows the student to demonstrate clinical expertise and competencies in organizational leadership, system analysis, program assessment and evaluation, and practice change.

Types of scholarly projects may include:

• Quality improvement initiatives
• Implementation and evaluation of evidence-based practice guidelines
• Integration of a practice change
• Design and evaluation of new models of care
• Design and evaluation of health care programs (e.g. tailored to underserved communities or address disparities in care)
• Evaluation of a practice model
• Pilot study
• Policy implementation, analysis, revision
• Implementation of a policy, project, or practice guideline
• Design and use of databases to retrieve information for decision-making, planning, evaluation
• Design and evaluation of innovative uses of technology to enhance/evaluate care

A shared feature of these examples is the use of evidence and systems leadership to improve healthcare outcomes, whether at the practice, patient, population, or health system level. The projects involve collaboration, assessment of need, implementation, cost analysis, evaluation of outcomes, recommendations for policy or practice change, and sustainability.  See DNP Scholarly Project Examples for examples of completed DNP Scholarly Projects.

Developing Essential DNP Skills

Published in 2006, the AACN DNP Essentials, “…outlines the curricular elements and competencies that are required for schools conferring the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree,” (p. 8). Students should be familiar with this document and refer to it as they move through their curriculum. The DNP Scholarly Project itself provides an opportunity to operationalize skills and demonstrate DNP Essential competencies. Not all projects will align with every DNP Essential. Therefore, student learning is supplemented by activities in the core DNP courses to ensure requirements are met. The Reflective e-Portfolio is a repository that demonstrates meeting the AACN DNP Essentials and SPU DNP Program Outcomes.

Preparatory Graduate Core courses are taken by the DNP students prior to the DNP Scholarly Project courses. These courses are foundational to the DNP Scholarly Project.

Students must have an ability to:

• Describe driving forces in global, national, and local healthcare settings
• Critically appraise evidence/clinical practice guidelines
• Formulate answerable clinical questions
• Complete literature reviews with synthesis of the evidence
• Articulate models for translation of evidence into the clinical setting
• Be capable of interacting with technology and data
• Understand implementation science
• Interpret/analyze the data

The student is charged with identifying a practice problem or gap in collaboration with an identified agency that can be impacted by the DNP Scholarly Project. 

The DNP student will assess the problem, develop a plan with the agency, then implement the project, evaluate the process, and disseminate their findings with consideration of sustainability.