Nursing Informatics (MSN)

This course introduces the student to contemporary theories of leadership, change, complexity science, and organizational structure and design. Students will complete an assessment of their leadership strengths and weaknesses and develop a professional leadership plan which will guide their progress throughout the rest of the program. Topics covered include leadership frameworks, change management paradigms, project management, organizational culture, education, and financial management. Also, the course addresses the integration of technology to improve and support nursing practice. It provides nurses with a foundational understanding of nursing informatics theory, practice, and applications. Topics include the tole of nursing in informatics; use of computer technology for clinical documentation, communication, and workflows; and best practices.

This course focuses on the role of the nurse leader in program planning for health promotion and disease prevention for populations. Students integrate and synthesize concepts associated with quality, health promotion, disease prevention, and chronic health problems within communities, the general population, and specific population groups; issues related to culturally diverse and vulnerable populations. Topics include determinates of health, epidemiology, biostatistics, and advancing equity in access, services, and outcomes for vulnerable populations

This course focuses on current trends and issues in professional nursing, health care delivery, and nursing education. Students will examine concepts of leadership and critically appraise the changing social, geopolitical, and health care environments that influence the nursing profession, nursing practice, and health. Students will develop appropriate strategies to strengthen their capacity to influence and respond to current trends and issues.

This course will develop knowledge and skills used by nurse managers for effective financial management in healthcare. Students will explore financial sources, analyze legislation and reimbursement mechanisms, evaluate business plans, and learn to manage budgets. Topics will include reimbursement systems, coding and payment mechanisms, ethics and legalities of contracting, governmental regulations, budget development, marketing, and interprofessional collaboration.

Ethics have a significant impact on the decisions nurses make in their day-to-day work, so it’s important for all student nurses to develop their understanding of ethical frameworks as preparation for future practice. This course explains ethical ideas, theories, and concepts in simple to understand terms, focusing on real-life nursing situations in order to make applying these principles to practice easy. This course teaches student nurses to consider their own values, and how ethics fit into who they are and how they behave, helping them to unlock this interesting and complex subject.

This course delves into the research process and its application to nursing and nursing practice. Research Methods in Nursing Examines the basic concepts, strategies, and procedures used in conducting and analyzing nursing research. Topics include various research types and methods, with emphasis on statistical methods. Rights and responsibilities toward human subjects are discussed.

This course covers manipulating structured data using different data management techniques, and analyze data requirements. Students learn to design relational databases and use SQL to define, query and update them and explore non-relational schemeless databases, and query them. Standards, such as html, SQL, ODBC and normalization will be stressed in both the theory and practical aspects of this course. Management of data will be supported by nursing informatics framework to meet the scope and standards of practice for Nursing Informatics (ANA, 2015).

This course will prepare students to use formal, state-of-the-art project management techniques in health/nursing informatics projects. Students will learn how to create a comprehensive project management plan which includes: scope, integration, communication, time, cost, risk, quality and human resources management. Issues related to project leadership, human resources, budgeting, and scheduling are discussed while risk identification and risk mitigation tactics are stressed. Case discussions highlight the state-or-the-art for project management practices as applied to health/nursing informatics in contemporary environments.

Focuses on advanced concepts in nursing and health informatics practice. Analyzes the health informatics meta structures, relationships between nursing and multidisciplinary standardized terminologies, trends in nursing and health informatics, ethical, privacy and legal issues, and the emerging role for the nurse informaticist. Additional focus on the impact of technological and societal trends on patients and patient outcomes, as well as compliance and regulatory mandates.

The capstone course is the culmination of the MSN in Nursing Informatics degree program and provides students the opportunity to demonstrate the competencies they have gained during their program. The student, with faculty supervision, plans a project that will be implemented in this course. Students will develop objectives relevant to the project, critique the literature, and present a plan for implementation. This project will integrate the academic and practical knowledge the student has acquired in the MSN of Nursing Informatics curriculum. Additionally, this course includes a practicum component where students will apply their project in a real-world healthcare or informatics setting. Under the guidance of a preceptor and faculty mentor, students will gain hands-on experience, evaluate outcomes, and refine their skills in nursing informatics. The practicum ensures that students have an opportunity to bridge theory and practice, fostering professional growth and readiness for advanced roles in the field. Prerequisite: NUR 500, NUR 510, NUR520, NUR 530, NUR 540, NUR 550, NUR 562, NUR 572, NUR
582, and NUR 592.