DNP Clinical Hour Activities Integrating the DNP Essentials
DNP Essential I. Scientific Underpinnings for Practice
- Attend conference/workshop related to EBP or focus of project
- Make presentation pertaining to PICOT question
DNP Essential II. Organizational and Systems Leadership for Quality Improvement and Systems Thinking
- Attend quality improvement meeting
- Identify need for rapid cycle improvement project
- Implement rapid cycle improvement project
- Evaluate rapid cycle improvement project
- Disseminate findings of rapid cycle improvement project
- Budget development or review
- Present at quality meeting
- Conduct assessment of practice setting
- Develop a SWOT analysis
- Meet with stakeholders/stakeholder engagement
- Evaluate cultural diversity within an organization
- Implement or disseminate a cultural/diversity awareness intervention
- Mentoring in a new leadership role
- Producing educational materials related to the DNP Project topic
- Provide leadership to foster intra-professional and inter-professional collaboration
- Demonstrate skills in peer review that promote a culture of evidence, apply clinical investigative skills to evaluate health outcomes (examples: interactive tutorials)
DNP Essential III. Clinical Scholarship and Analytical Methods for Evidence-Based Practice
- Serve as an abstract reviewer
- Serve as consultant for collaborative research
- Complete core measure training
- Attend grant training/workshop
- Prepare grant proposal or participate in related activities
- Disseminate DNP project findings internally or externally
- Serve as a proposal reviewer
- Poster or podium presentation of findings at a professional conference, in the organization, or to stakeholders
- Utilizing evidence-based practice to improve patient outcomes through change and/or intervention o This must be other than DNP project (example: improving patient processes through policy development and/or process improvement)
DNP Essential IV. Information Systems/Technology and Patient Care Technology for the Improvement of Transformation of Healthcare
- Design web-accessible training material
- Evaluate web-accessible training or educational material
- Design a mobile application for healthcare
- Evaluate a healthcare mobile application
- Participate in health information technology as an evaluator
- Participate in health information technology as a team leader
- Participate on health information committee at institutional level
- Participate on health information committee at international level
- Participate on health information committee at national level
- Participate on health information committee at state level
- Participate on health information committee at a local level
- Development of tools for assessment and evaluation related to project
- Integrates evidence-based practice standards into information management systems
DNP Essential V. Healthcare Policy for Advocacy in Healthcare
- Analyze health policy proposal
- Construct health policy proposal
- Provide testimony for health policy
- Meet with elected official for review of health policy
- Participate on health care policy committee at international level
- Participate on health care policy committee at institutional level
- Participate on health care policy committee at national level
- Participate on health care policy committee at state level
- Participate on healthcare policy committee at a local level
- Engaging in policy development, legal bill preparation, and presentation of information
(ex.Visiting a representative to discuss Bills related to NP/DNP practice)
DNP Essential VI. Interprofessional Collaboration for Improving Patient and Population Health Outcomes
- Consult with mentor/preceptor: in person
- Participate in interprofessional team in consultant role (Only if related to project)
- Participate in interprofessional team in member role (Only if related to project)
- Consult with content experts: in person, by phone or email
- Participate in an interprofessional team in leader role (Only if related to project)
- Staff development/project leadership/development of an interdisciplinary team
- Attend seminars related to project question
- Attending approved conferences with CME documentation as approved for NP certification
- Inservice for staff related to implementation of the project recommendations
- Engaging in professional committee work such as serving on a committee
DNP Essential VII. Clinical Prevention and Population Health for Improving the Nation’s Health
- Collect epidemiological data
- Analyze epidemiological data
- Identify gaps in care for individuals, communities, and populations
- Implement and evaluate health promotion/disease prevention interventions
- Advocating for vulnerable populations through presentations or practice (ex. Mission work)
DNP Essential VIII. Advanced Nursing Practice
- Assess clients, populations or organizations in practice setting
- Disseminate knowledge to other healthcare providers
- Mentor other healthcare providers (not to include precepting a nursing student or the education of nursing students or hours teaching a class for nursing students)
- Implement therapeutic interventions in practice setting
- Consultation with experts regarding advanced nursing practice
- Develop new or expanded advanced practice role
- Learning new leadership and advanced practice skills appropriate to Doctoral Inquiry or clinical practice field of expertise
- Practice experiences that are outside of the job description and responsibilities of the student o The practice experience must have goals and learning outcomes completed during a mentored relationship with a clinical expert and/or faculty member
(DNP PROJECT PROPOSALTEMPLATE)
[THIS TEMPLATE IS NOT AUTO-FORMATTED
USE IT AS GUIDE AND CREATE AND FORMAT YOUR OWN PROPOSAL
TEMPLATE ACCORDING TO THE INSTRUCTIONS HEREIN]
Full Title of the Proposal (Title Case)
Author’s Name (no professional initials)
University of Massachusetts,Amherst
College of Nursing
Chair: Type your advisor’s name here
Mentor: Type your practice site preceptor/mentor’s name here
Date of Submission: Month, Day, Year
Table of Contents
Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Background……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 5
Problem Statement……………………………………………………………………………………………. 6
Organizational “Gap”Analysis of Project Site…………………………………………………………… 6
Review of the Literature (related to evidence based practice/s to address the problem)……… 6
Evidence Based Practice: Verification of Chosen Option……………………………8
Theoretical Framework/Evidence Based Practice Model…………………………………………………. 8
Goals& Objectives ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Project Design …………………………………………………………………………….9
Project Site and Population…………………………………………………………………………………. 9
Setting Facilitators and Barriers……………………………………………………………………….. 9
Methods…………………………………………………………………………………….9
Measurement Instrument(s)……………………………………………………………………………… 10
Data Collection Procedure …………………………………………………………………………………. 11
Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 11
Results (for final work only)
Interpretation/Discussion(for final work only)
Cost-Benefit Analysis/Budget ……………………………………………………………11
Timeline ………………………………………………………………………………….12
Ethical Considerations/Protection of Human Subjects …………………………………..12
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 13
References………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 15
Appendix(All inclusions are listed sequentially in order they appear in paper)…………………… 16
Appendix A…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 16
Appendix B (Example Time Line: your Timeline will be lettered in sequence with other appendix items)16
Appendix C and so on………
Abstract
An abstract is a brief (approximately 500 words—no longer than one page) summary of the contents of the proposal. The abstract includes an overview of the proposed project’s introduction and background and review of literature, purpose, method, plan, [results, interpretation/discussion, and conclusionare added when project completed]. Abstract does not contain personal comments and shouldnot contain citations.
Required Headers:
Background and Review of Literature:
Purpose:
Methods:
Implementation Plan/Procedure:
Implications/Conclusion:
Keywords, such as those below, are words you used to perform database searches for the proposal.
Keywords: APA style, sixth edition, publication manual
[This template is a guide to writing a DNP project proposal in APA Style, 6th edition. It provides the necessary sections, headings, and subheadings required in a proposal, as well as the line and paragraph spacing, page breaks, page numbering, and referencing styles. It is formatted with one inch top, bottom, left, and right margins; Times New Roman font in 12 point; double-spaced; aligned left; and paragraphs indented 5-7 spaces. The page number appears one inch from the right edge on the first line of each page. APA 6th Edition allows one or two spaces between each sentence. For more information about APA Style, see the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.), the APA Style web site: http://www.apastyle.org, and Purdue Owl Writing Center website: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/.]
Add Full Title of the Proposal(Title Case), Centered, Doubled-Spaced
Introduction
In this introductory section, begin by writing a concise paragraph that gives an overview of your problem telling why the problem within your chosen population is important.
Background
The Background section includes the detailed evidence of the problem. It can be a few paragraphs up to a few pages in length. Build a case for the need for the project that you propose by discussing key indicators that are missing, lacking or inadequate. Describe key data about the magnitude of problem, dynamics leading to problem, population characteristics, attitudes and behaviors that are causing or exacerbating your problem. Support this with findings from the literature; include relevant statistics (national, regional, and/or local), and cite them according to APA Style, 6th ed. Public Health Departments and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are great places to look for these statistics. As O’Leary (2010) states, the main job of this section is “to … convince your readers that the problem you want to address is significant and worth exploring” (p. 64). Example of appropiate citation for quote, but remember, use quotes sparingly.
Note that all source material used in this proposal must be documented in the body of the paper by citing the authors and dates of the sources (See Appendix A for basic citation guidelines). When you have multiple sources in one parenthetical citation, they are listed within the citation in alphabetical order of the first author of each article. The full reference to each citation must appear on a separate reference page entitled ‘References’. The reference pages at the end of this template provide examples of types of references frequently used in academic papers. Reference entries are typed in hanging indent format, meaning that the first line of each reference is set flush left and subsequent lines are indented.
Problem Statement
Your introduction section should smoothly transition into aproblem statement. It should flow logically from the information you provided. Take all that you have written about your population, problem, and what is lacking in practice and encapsulate it into one to three sentences that succinctly summarize the problem. Then, lastly, explain your Quality Improvement (QI) project approach and how your approach will address the problem.
Organizational “Gap” Analysis of Project Site
Include a description of the gap analysis of the project site to identify why this project is appropriate for the site where it will be implemented. Use your Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) Guide and other resources to outline this section.
Review of the Literature
This section should always start with a paragraph describing your search terms, databases you searched, number of articles found and exclusion and inclusion criteria for choosing articles to review about the intervention or solution options for your population problem. The goal of a review of literature is to present an in-depth, current state of knowledge about your particular topic and QI approach to solving the population problem. Rather than just summarizing and listing research studies, one after another, conductedon your topic,summarize, compare and contrast the works, and then synthesize the key concepts of the literature you have read. Identify any major trends, patterns, or gaps you may have found in the literature and identify any relationships among studies. In general, there is a five-year span from the present for the date of literature you should use except for an older, landmark/hallmark study, which should be identified as such.The review of literature for your proposal should provide the context your future capstone project through your narrative that fully explores the best evidence based practice options to address the problem.
The review of the literature should clearly describe your search strategy, the results from each database, the number of articles yielded, how you eliminated any articles and the final count – as well as types – of articles used. The search process should be precisely described such that if anyone wanted to replicate your search, they would get similar results.
Organize your main findings by using subheadings called Level 2 headings, which are typed in bold face type, in upper and lower case letters (Title Case), and typed flush with the left side of the paper. Use Level 3 headings to further subdivide topics. Level 3 headings are indented, typed in lowercase letters, in boldface, and followed by a period. Examples of Level 2 and 3 headings can be found in this paper under Project Design. The APA Manual or the Purdue Owl Writing Center website provides more information about all five levels of headings in APA Style, 6th edition.Use quotes sparingly and only to emphasize or explain an important point. More than one quote per scholarly paper, may be one quote too many!
Do not make broad statements about the conclusiveness of research studies, either positive or negative. Be objective in your presentation of the facts. Each paragraph should begin with a significant statement, well cited! and describe only one key point. The idea is the next paragraph should logically flow from the content of its predecessor.
Conclude the review of literature with a concise summary of your findings and provide a rationale for conducting your DNP project based on your findings.
Evidence Based Practice: Verification of Chosen Option
This section includes a brief statement about the evidence-based practice/s (EBP) [specific practice or educationsl intervention, program intervention or evaluation, presentation and toolkit, or policy change] QI option that you have chosen and that you will be implementing based on the review of the literature.
Theoretical Framework or Evidence Based Practice Model
In this section, name and define the theoretical or conceptual framework or evidence based practice model that underpins your proposal and future capstone project. Place a diagram of the model as appropriate at the end of the paper in an appendix, after the Reference pages and refer to the diagram in this section. Demonstrate, using examples, how this framework is used to guide the DNPproject.Remember, your theoretical framework is not an implementation strategy such as Plan/Do/Check/Act (Plan/Do /Study/Act is used for research studies). You may discuss an implementation strategy, including PDCA in the methods section below.
Goals, Objectives and Expected Outcomes
Describe your goals and objectives for the DNP project. Remember the acronym SMART when writing your objectives and expected outcomes. They should be Specific, Measurable, Assignable (specify who will carry them out), Realistic, and Time-specific. You can include a table or a numbered list in this section. Make sure your goals and Objectives match your Expected Outcomes. Make sure that the Expected Outcomes are reasonable for your project design, plan, and timeframe and are measureable. Avoid using vague terms such as “understand” for this section.
Example: Four (4) sixty-minute educational presentations from 3pm – 4pm each Wednesday during October 2018 to staff on the the Toolkit vPowerPoint format.
Project Design
In this section, clearly explain your Quality Improvement Project design (what type of project you will be implementing:Educational intervention,Practice Intervention, Process Improvement,Pprogram Evaluation, Integrative Review with Presentaion of Toolkit, or health policy change) and, the methods (quantitative and qualitative) you will use to obtain the desired datafor your project.Use the future tense to explain what you will do in your DNP project. Convince the reader that your approach is practical and will lead to a credible solutionto your proposed problem.
Write a paragraph describing each of the following subheadings as they apply to your project.
Project Site and Population
Describe the setting where the project will take place and the necessary resources for the project. (Modify as needed for integrative review and health policy options). This includes the description of the community, its makeup, current services, the participants and stakeholders,and the role they will play in the project. Describe the characteristics of the participants (providers, patients, community dwellers, administrators, staff, litigators, public health personnel, etc.), and selection or recruitment strategies, if applicable.List the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Describe how the project site or practice is organized, the services offered, current procedures, staffing patterns, etc. and how you will interact with sitepersonnel and patients (clients) to implement your project.If you are able to get a letter of support for your project on the agency letterhead, please include in the appendices.
Describe the resources, constraints, facilitators and barriers that will influence the implementation of your DNPproject. Additionally, describe how you plan to overcome the barriers or roadblocks to actualization of project.
Methods
The Plan is the ‘HOW TO’ part of your proposal. This section includes is a detailed description about how you will actualize (from set-up to data collection) and complete your project. This section should be precisely described such that if anyone wanted to replicate your proposal / project, they could do so.
Measurement Instruments
In order to evaluate the DNP Project there will be data you need to measure. You will need to identify when and how you will measure this data (pre-post intervention, post intervention, at different intervals – a time series etc.) You may start this section: In order measure the outcomes of this DNP Project the following instruments will be used: Selects either established tools or you may choose to create your own surveys.In either case you must describe which surveys or tools you will be using to evaluate your DNP Project and include copies in the appendix.You should describe the strength of any established tools you choose to use based on the literature.
Data Collection Procedures
Describe all the steps of your project in narrative form, including your plan for implementation and plan for evaluation. You can use subheaders that define your approach. You can use the Plan, Do, Check, Act PDCA framework or key parts of your theory as subheaders to tie together the parts of your plan. Include projected recruitment, steps in actualizing the intervention, data collection procedures, and evaluation. You can organize your procedures by stages or phases (pre-intervention, intervention, postintervention) of your project implementation and/or according to a timeline.
Data Analysis
Fully address how you plan to describe and or analyze the quantitative and/ or qualitative data that you will collect.Descriptive statistics alone are fine for projects with less than 12-15 participants- consider using graphical representations of your data. These data may be from the measurement instruments you listed or from focus groups, individual or group discussions, orobservations
Cost-Benefit Analysis/Budget
Provide an account of costs – financial, time or otherwise and who will bear them. If you are using a clinical site, make sure to show how you offset costs with benefits to site, providers, and patients within the site. Do not include costs for such things are your personal computer use, or your personal transportation unless you are specifically traveling to multiple sites to conduct the project. Place Cost-Benefit Analysis/Budget Table in appendix and refer to it here.
Timeline
Outline in detail the timelineyou propose for actualization of your project, starting with proposal approval and continuing through data collection through analysis of and interpretation of outcomes. Remember that your proposal may not be approved until 3-4 weeks into the fall semester. Make a Table for Timeline and place in appendix–See Appendix B for example.
Ethical Considerations/Protection of Human Subjects
Use these narrative sentences to launch this section: “The University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass) Internal Review Board (IRB) approval will be obtained prior to initiating the DNP Project”.
The official IRB Determination Form will be submitted as soon as the proposal is approved. Then, look at the UMass IRB site for samples of informed consents.Describe how HIPPA and Standards of Care assist you to protect your particiapnts. Describe any ethical considerations, risks and benefits, if applicable.
One Example:All participants were protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)which, among other guarantees, protects the privacy of patients’ health information (Modifications to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Rules, 2013). Additionally, the DNP student and practice personnel who carefully conducted this project followed the Standards of Care for practice in a primary care office. All information collected as part of evaluating the impact of this project was aggregated data from the project participants and did not include any potential patient identifiers.
The risk to patients participating in this project was no different from the risks of patients receiving standard XXX care. Participant confidentiality was assured by coding the participants using individual identification numbers. The list of participants and their identifying numbers were kept in locked filing cabinets each practice office, only accessible to the project coordinators. All electronic files containing identifiable information were password protected to prevent access by unauthorized users and only the project coordinators had access to the passwords.
Note: Once you submitthe IRB Determination Form and get letter of approvalor waiver of Human Subjects, include notice in final work and as an appendix item.
Conclusion
Summarize briefly your clinical problem, the evidence you have presented and your plan for addressing the problem in your specific practice setting. This summary should not include introduction of new citations, but rather explaining how what you have found in your review fits together.
Once you complete the entire proposal, go back to the Table of Contents to fill in the subheaders you have chosen to use for your project proposal narrative and the page numbers that are appropriate for each section and sub-section header. When you do revisions, you will have to go back to the TOC to make sure the subheaders and page numbers are still correct and correctly leveled.
As previously mentioned, all literature cited in the proposal must be referenced in APA Style, 6th edition, on a separate reference page(s). Please do not list works you have not cited in the text all all citations must have a corresponding reference. The following list shows the more commonly used references. For more information on how to reference, refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.), the APA Style tutorial web site found at http://www.apastyle.org/learn/tutorials/basics-tutorial.aspx, and thePurdue Owl Writing Center website found at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/.
Note that appendices appear after the reference page(s). They are used to present detailed information that adds to the body of the paper, for example, sample questionnaires, tables, or figures. Tables usually show numerical values or textual information arranged in an orderly display of columns and rows. Any type of illustration other than a table is a figure. Figures present data in the forms of graphs, charts, maps, drawings, and photographs. Refere to APA 6th Edition for examples for tables and figures: http://psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/resources/handouts_apa/TablesFigures1.pdf .
If your manuscript has only one appendix, label it Appendix in italics. If it has more than one, label each appendix with a capital letter, for example, Appendix A, Appendix B, according to the order in which you refer to it in your text. Label each appendix with a title, but refer to it in the text by its label, for example: (see the AppendixA for basic APA, 6th edition, citation styles).
References (Sample citation format)
American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (1991). Title of book chapter or entry. In A. Editor, B. Editor, & C. Editor (Eds.), Title of book (pp. xxx-xxx). St. Louis: Mosby.
Chinn, P.L., & Kramer, M.K. (2004). Integrated knowledge development in nursing (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby.
Clay, R. (2008, June). Science vs. ideology: Psychologists fight back about the misuse of research. Monitor on Psychology, 39(6). Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor
Graham, I. D., & Harrison, M. B., (2005). Evaluation and adaptation of clinical practice guidelines. Evidence-Based Nursing, 8, 68-72.
New child vaccine gets funding boost. (2001). Retrieved March 21, 2001, from http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/story_13178.asp
O’Leary, Z. (2010). The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project. Los Angeles: Sage.
Ross, D.L. & Hvizdash, S. (2002). Integrating religious practices in home health care: A case study of collaborative between the health care system and the Orthodox Jew. Home Health Care Management & Practice, 14(6), 457-460. 10.1177/108482202236699
Schiraldi, G. R. (2003). The post-traumatic stress disorder sourcebook: A guide to healing. (Adobe Digital Edition version). Doi: 10.1036/10071393722
Smith, M. (2001). Writing a successful paper. The Trey Research Monthly, 53(1), 149-150.
Appendix
(Align Appendices sequentially from first inclusion
in narrative through last inclusion.
Start each new Appendix item on separate page in your actual work)
Appendix A
(or whatever letter will be Costs Table)
Appendix B
Timeline
Table 1
Simplified Project Timeline(yours will have more Task Headers and will be more detailed)
Task | October | November | December | January | February | March | April |
Recruitment of eligible participants | X |
continued |
? |
||||
Intervention;
Evaluation; Toolkit |
X | X | X | X | X | ||
Post-test and
Analysis of outcomes |
X | X | X | X | |||
Results presented to local providers | X |