The Development of Practice Scholarship in DNP Programs, Essay Example

The main purpose of DNP education is to ensure that practicing nurses are aware of how to conduct research that it appropriate to their field of practice (Brown, 2013). The design and completion of a relevant research project allows health care professionals undergoing research training to develop a better understanding of how to ensure that these projects will be useful and build upon current knowledge (Mennonite College of Nursing, n.d.). Furthermore, the role of the DNP-prepared nurse in scholarship is to increase the conception of evidence-based practice. For a health care organization to be successful, it is necessary for all employees to be aware of the research that is currently being conducted in the field, as it is important to determine how these findings should influence practice change. A nurse who regularly reads peer-reviewed research journals is an important part of this process, as it will allow necessary changes to be made on a personal and institutional level.

An example of this utility is that the DNP-prepared nurse will have an enhanced ability to work towards reducing the percentage of patients that are readmitted into the facility. By incorporating knowledge from the literature and carrying out best nursing practices, nurses are able to determine how they can reduce this statistic, which will contribute to improve patient quality of care and safety. A second example in which the training that a DNP-prepared nurse is applicable in scholarship is with regards to altering institutional policies (Gatti-Petito et al., 2013). The DNP nurse is aware of how to determine the success of interventions, such as improving the records that are kept using electronic health record systems, to decrease the number of medication error or falls that occur.

My particular DNP project will help contribute to nursing scholarship because it intends to determine how the hospital environment and outside community could become more accepting of babies and their mother’s need to breastfeed them. Society currently has an understanding that it is inappropriate to breastfeed in public, which is detrimental to the health of developing children. At the hospital level, nurses can provide useful advice to new mothers concerning how to deal with their new experiences and how to ensure that their child is receiving the proper nutrition. This concept changes the normalities of nursing practice in health care institutions because new mothers are typically not provided with a thorough education that will allow them to understand how to best care for their new child (Berkowitz, 2015). However, many first time mothers would benefit from this information, and feel less stressed if they have a clearer idea of how to support the health of their newborns. Therefore, the success of such a program could result in institutional changes at either the local, state, or national level. It will emphasize the importance of making the public aware of these challenges, which can create a feeling of acceptance, rather than rejection towards breast feeding mothers.

This project will begin at the local institutional level, although it is possible that successful publication of these findings will result in a more widespread adoption of these plans. It is through this process that the influence of nursing research spreads and it is necessary to emphasize that it has a cyclical flow. As nursing scholars learn more about information that has been published in the literature, they will be able to use it to develop research plans. These research plans will then inspire an additional research plan or policy change, which will contribute to the improvement of the field as a whole.

References

Berkowitz B. (2015). DNP Capstone Projects. Springer Publishing Company.

Brown MA. (2013). The Development of Practice Scholarship in DNP Programs: A Paradigm Shift. Journal of Professional Nursing, 29(6): 330-337.

Gatti-Petito J, Lakatos BE, Bradley HB, Cook L, Haight IE, Karl CA. (2013) Clinical Scholarship and Adult Learning Theory: A Role for the DNP in Nursing Education. Nursing Education Perspectives, 34(4): 273-276.

Mennonite College of Nursing. (n.d.). Seeking Clarity on the Nature of DNP Scholarship.