New Breed of Nurse: The DNP

DNPs Are Effective Leaders

The Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) prepares leaders for the fast changing health care industry and provides opportunity for candidates to integrate their quotidian practice skills with the knowledge gained in their studies. Every industry is experiencing change, but few sectors are changing as rapidly as medicine and health care. For instance, technology has been disruptive in medicine and healthcare -- as it has everywhere else -- acting as both catalyst and vehicle for telemedicine. And soon medical records for all patients under nearly all conditions and in most contexts will be held electronically as informatics continues to evolve into a practice that fosters improved patient care and the transmission of more complete information.

Critical as the need is for graduates of doctor of nursing practice programs, there is currently a shortage, in large part, because the program is relatively new. The doctorate of nursing practice is a terminal degree that prepares many graduates to teach in nursing schools. With their practice experience, DNPs are particularly able to work at closing the practice-education gap that seems so resistant in nursing schools, particularly when nursing educators have come primarily from scholarly backgrounds and not from clinical backgrounds (Dansey, et al., 2011). The contemporary standards for nursing practice have become broader, deeper, and more rigorous. As the field of nursing moves forward, there is an ever increasing need to "bridge the disconnect between theory and practice" (Dansey, et al., 2011). To accomplish this substantial task efficaciously, new visions are needed to guide implementation of innovative educational programs. Nurses need to make use of different frameworks and lenses to determine how to address current healthcare needs and meet the healthcare demands of the future. These challenges demand prepared, adaptable, and effective leaders who know nursing practice backwards and forwards -- and who are profoundly confortable in the world of scholarship and education. Indeed, nothing less than the ability to reorder the priorities of organizations is required in the contemporary new role of graduates holding doctorates in nursing practice.