Master of Science in Nursing Program

The Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) is designed for nurses who wish to specialize in an advanced area of nursing. This program prepares them for advanced roles of Nurse Educator. The program incorporates contents that enable students to learn and apply the theory and principles of advanced nursing disciplines.

The MSN program outcomes are aligned with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing publication, The Essentials of Master’s Education in Nursing (2011). Upon completion of the MSN degree program, the graduate will be able to:

1. Engage in advanced nursing practice based on the integration of nursing science, related sciences and humanities, current evidence, clinical experience, and ethical principles
2. Integrate knowledge, theory, research and skills in the delivery of comprehensive care and services for individuals, families and populations.
3. Practice safe, high-quality advanced nursing care based on concepts and knowledge from nursing and related disciplines.
4. Synthesize evidence for practice to determine appropriate application of interventions across diverse populations.
5. Use quality processes and improvement science to evaluate care and ensure patient safety for individuals and communities.
6. Construct processes for leading and promoting quality improvement and safety in advanced nursing practice and healthcare delivery.
7. Use contemporary communication modalities effectively in advanced nursing roles.
8. Evaluate the design, implementation and outcomes of strategies developed to meet healthcare needs.
9. Design culturally sensitive programs and systems of care and services that meet the needs of diverse and vulnerable populations.
10. Demonstrate organizational and systems leadership to assure ethical and critical decision-making at all systems’ levels for quality and patient safety.
11. Develop a plan for lifelong personal and professional growth that integrates professional values regarding scholarship, service and global engagement.
12. Integrate and apply ethical principles into theories, research, and practice as well as clinical reasoning to assess, intervene, and evaluate advanced nursing care delivery.
13. Provide evidence-based, clinically proficient care and services using critical thinking skills in advanced nursing roles.
14. Design patient-centered care models and delivery systems using the best available scientific evidence.
15. Design nursing care for a clinical or community-focused population based on biopsychosocial, public health, nursing, and organizational sciences.
16. Manage human, fiscal and physical resources to achieve and support individual and organizational goals.
17. Compose a plan for systematic inquiry and dissemination of findings to support advanced nursing practice, patient-care innovation, and the nursing profession.
18. Collaborate interprofessionally in research, education, practice, health policy and leadership to improve population health outcomes and influence improvement in healthcare systems.
19. Integrate and apply principles of informatics to manage data and information in order to support effective decision making, to make changes in the care environment to improve healthoutcomes, and to support safe, quality patient care and healthcare systems effectiveness.
20. Advocate for healthcare policies and financing that promote, preserve and restore public health.
21. Demonstrate commitment to lifelong learning for continued professional growth.
22. Integrate the advanced competencies expected of a master’s prepared nurse to design, deliver, and evaluate outcomes of systems of care for individuals, families, and diverse populations.

1. Completion of a baccalaureate degree program from an institution accredited by an agency that is recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education or the council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).
2. An academic transcript to evidence the baccalaureate must be submitted prior to matriculation.
3. A baccalaureate from an institution located outside of the United States and its territories must be evaluated by a credential evaluation service provider. The provider must have published standards for membership, affiliations to U.S.-based international higher education associations, and be linked to and used by federal agencies, state agencies, educational institutions and employers (e.g. NACES and AICE)
4. Overall grade point average of 3.0. (on a four-point scale) or higher in their bachelor’s course work.
5. Show proof of legal residence in the United States. (Only California residents are admitted to the MSN program.
6. Possess a valid Social Security card.
7. With computer literacy(basic functions and familiarity with computer use) - Student must have consistent and reliable access to a computer, an up-to-date and secure internet connection, and an operating system that is compatible with the use of Canvas as the Learning Management System for the program.

Clinical/Practicum Requirements:

1. Physical Exam
2. Annual PPD
3. Hepatitis B Series / Titer
4. MMR/Rubeola AB, Rubella AB, Varicella /Varicella AB
5. DPT
6. American Heart Association Healthcare Provider Card (BLS/CPR)
7. Student Nursing Malpractice/NSO Insurance

CURRICULUM PLAN

The curriculum consists of core courses, role emphasis courses, role performance (clinical/practicum) courses, culminating assessment and experience.

COURSE DECSRIPTION

Introduces competencies and other foundational components of advanced nursing practices such as history, roles, options and choices that are associated with career development and professional practice. This course addresses the rapid changes in the health care environment with a special focus on health care finance, electronic health records, quality improvement, patient safety, economics of health care, environmental science, epidemiology, genetics/genomics, gerontology, global healthcare environment and perspectives, health policy, informatics, organizations and systems, communication, negotiation, advocacy, interprofessional practice. as well as emerging roles for the advanced practice nurse.

This course helps learners better understand the economic theory of health and healthcare and to evaluate and interpret empirical findings in health economics. It focuses on the following substantive areas that form the analytic basis for many of the issues in health policy: economics and financing; need and demand; politics/ethics/law; and quality/effectiveness. Topics to be covered include measurement and determinants of health, health disparities, and health insurance, characteristics of the current health care environment as it pertains to policy development, health planning, and economic management at the national, state and local levels.

Discusses theories and research from nursing, health promotion, health protection and disease prevention. Family, human development, patient education and community are the foundation for exploring the phenomena of family focused care. Focuses on assessment, diagnosis, intervention and outcome evaluation of wellness and disease prevention needs and issues encountered in advanced nursing roles.

This course is designed to help guide graduate students to critique and apply research findings in nursing practice. It focuses on research processes as it relates to health and nursing practice. Emphasizes developing abilities to interpret research reports and assist in scientific investigations.

  This course prepares the student to utilize informatics and health care technologies in the management of individuals, groups and organizations for the improvement of patient outcomes; to deliver and enhance care and use communication technologies to integrate and coordinate care. Focus is on the use information and communication technologies, resources, and principles of learning to teach patients and others.

Provides the advanced practice nurse with the tools to perform comprehensive health assessment on clients across the lifespan. The diagnostic reasoning skills needed for clinical reasoning in the advanced practice role are emphasized with analysis and synthesis of subjective and objective data to identify health problems an develop management plans. Health promotion risk factor identification and recognition of common abnormalities are also explored.

Focuses on application of advanced knowledge of the complex physiological functions and pathophysiological processes related to the care of individuals with health care problems. Emphasis is placed on regulatory and compensatory mechanisms as they relate to commonly occurring diseases.

In this course, MSN learners examine curriculum frameworks and models used in nursing education. Throughout the course, learners demonstrate their understanding of these frameworks by beginning to develop curricula that are designed to reflect professional nursing standards, contemporary health care trends and that are structured to achieve expected student outcomes, and curriculum designs that satisfy the nursing accrediting bodies and regulatory requirements that impact nursing curricula.

In this course, student learn various models of learning and teaching and their applications in teaching-learning environment in nursing. Emphasis is on different available teaching styles and strategies available to deliver the content considering the principles and methods of teaching in adult learners. Learners examine the integration of current and evolving technology into nursing

education and learn the use of multimedia, social media, computer-based technology, learning management systems, simulation, technology tools for outcomes assessment, and the process for selecting the appropriate technology in teaching and learning process.

This course prepares the student for the nursing role of educator in a variety of academic and community settings. It analyzes and synthesizes testing and evaluation strategies, examines current topics and issues related to student assessment and evaluation of learning outcomes using nursing and education theory and research designed to meet the needs of diverse learners. Learners will investigate a variety of strategies used to assess and evaluate student learning in the classroom, online, in the laboratory, and in clinical settings, as well as within all domains of learning.

This practicum course provides students the opportunity for implementing the nurse educator role in an education or health care setting where they can apply curriculum development, develop skills in classroom and clinical teaching, and evaluation methods in an educator role within the student’s area of specialization under the supervision of the instructor and a preceptor.

This course will allow students to gain clinical practice experience that enables them to integrate new knowledge and demonstrate attainment of MSN program outcomes. Clinical experience focuses on direct nursing care provided to individuals or families that is intended to achieve specific health goals and outcomes and experience that contributes to expertise in an area of practice.

This MSN Capstone course is intended to graduating students toresearch, design and develop a substantial original applied project. A capstone project creates a venue for students to create and facilitate a project that demonstrates an understanding of accumulated nursing knowledge in MSN level. This project is intended to encourage the application of theories, principles, and processes that have been studied in the MSN curriculum. This course also serves as culminating activity session where students will be able to integrate learning across the entire program to demonstrate mastery of the subject matter, apply this learning outside of individual assignments/courses, show critical and independent thinking, and demonstrate knowledge, skills, values for new advanced nursing practice roles.