Capella University’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree is a curriculum targeted at already registered nurses. The curriculum is designed to expand the knowledge and skills of professional nurses to enable them to meet the growing diversity in the needs of patients and diverse healthcare systems and promote positive population health outcomes. The current healthcare environment has grown complex, requiring healthcare professionals to apply effective thinking skills to solve current and emergent health issues (Baron, 2021). Healthcare systems are currently using patient-centered care, practical evidence, and technology-assisted approaches to improve the quality of population health (Stalter & Mota, 2018). The Capella University Bachelor of Science in Nursing curriculum is therefore designed to equip registered nurses with the required knowledge and skills applicable to promoting population health.
The Capella University School of Nursing and Health Sciences’ mission statement states the school is focused on being a leader in the provision of quality undergraduate and graduate nursing and healthcare education. It seeks to achieve distinction in scholarship and practice for healthcare practitioners and leaders who intend to maximize their personal and professional potential. The school prepares health professionals for a lifetime of learning, service, leadership, and contribution by offering innovative programs in response to the needs of adult learners and an online environment.
The curriculum courses are divided into various groups, which include general education courses, foundational nursing courses, effective courses, capstone courses, and courses designed for student registered nurses in the honors pathway. Effective courses are the core of the curriculum and include;
Developing a Health Care Perspective: Designed to help students build and strengthen their knowledge, skills, and abilities for success both in the program and in their workplace.
Leading People, Processes, and Organizations in Inter-professional Practice: Designed to help learners understand and develop abilities desired to effect and manage change in interprofessional health care practice.
Improving Quality of Care and Patient Safety: Designed to enable learners to develop relevant skills for quality improvement of health care and patient safety.
Making Evidence-Based Decisions: Designed to equip the students with the right knowledge and skills to enable them to effectively interpret research and apply evidence in care planning and decisions to support and promote interventions.
Managing Health Information and Technology: Designed to equip learners with knowledge and skills to leverage technology to best achieve the desired patient, health care systems, and population health outcomes,
Coordinating Patient-Centered Care: Designed to equip the learners with the required knowledge and skills to respond effectively to “unique biopsychosocial attributes and situational context of each individual patient while recognizing the patient as a full partner in all health care decision making.”
Practicing in the Community to Improve Population Health: Designed to equip the learners with the skills and knowledge to analyze community and social determinants of health within culturally diverse populations to enable them to promote health and prevent disease.
The curriculum is accredited and recognized by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), the American Nurses Association (ANA), and the Nurses on Boards Coalition (NBC). Therefore, it is designed under the guidelines of the CCNE to ensure that it meets the quality and integrity of levels of programs in nursing education. It also considers the guidelines of the ANA in its training to produce nurses who meet the quality standards and ethical obligations required in nursing care. The student learning outcomes (SLO) of the BSN curriculum include:
Applying leadership concepts and skills in interprofessional teams to promote high-quality care,
Inter-professional communication and teamwork,
Integrating evidence, clinical reasoning, and interprofessional and patient perspectives in making clinical decisions,
Demonstrating skills in the use of patient care technologies and related health information systems
Demonstrating critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Based on the analysis of the Capella University BSN curriculum, it seeks to examine and expand concepts related to the improvement of care delivery to patients. It, ther