Online Doctor of Nursing Practice Careers

Step into a Highly Valued Nurse Leadership Role

The Doctor of Nursing Practice online degree program at New Mexico Highlands University prepares nurses to work in challenging roles within diverse settings to influence health care outcomes for individuals and populations. Career options span direct patient care roles to leading interdisciplinary teams that focus on quality and safety issues, health policy and economics, and social determinates of health.

Doctoral-level nurses command a high earning power due to their advanced competencies and enhanced practice knowledge. They are ready to fill the gap left by physician shortages, especially in rural communities in New Mexico, by providing expertise in nurse leadership, evidence-based practice, quality improvement and organization policy shaping. Those who practice in a high-demand specialized area are typically set apart from others in the job market.

What Makes Us Unique?

• Develop high-quality expertise in nurse leadership.
• Build knowledge of rural, patient-centered health care.
• Gain real-world professional experience from practicum hours.

What You’ll Learn

• Knowledge of Nursing Practice: Incorporate theoretical, scientific and experiential knowledge from nursing, biopsychosocial, organizational science, leadership development and quality improvement models to improve health care across diverse settings.
• Population Health and Health Systems: Utilize epidemiological and biostatistical data, knowledge of cultural practices as well as rural health promotion strategies and social determinants of health to influence, cost, accessibility and quality of clinical health services locally and nationally. Contribute to shaping policies that improve health care and advance the profession of nursing.
• Practice Scholarship and Translational Science: Apply evidence-based practice strategies to inform delivery models, guidelines and best practices in order to influence clinical health care, and project outcomes or resolve practice problems.
• Quality and Safety: Use organizational and leadership principles to guide quality improvement activities
• Interprofessional Collaboration in Practice/Professionalism: Incorporate communication and decision-making skills to convene, lead or participate in interprofessional groups for the purpose of analyzing complex practice and organizational issues to improve health system, population or individual health outcomes
• Technology and Informational Literacy: Use information systems and emerging technology to promote patient and group health practices, analyze practice patterns and design innovative strategies for health care delivery.
• Person-Centered Care: Initiate performance-related outcomes derived from nursing and related sciences that measure the effectiveness of care management, health education, as well as the quality and safety of care delivered by advanced practice nurses.
• Personal and Professional Leadership Development: Use personal and professional activities to foster personal and professional well-being; participate in lifelong learning to support development of nursing knowledge and leadership skills.

Skills You’ll Gain

• Develop quality improvement projects
• Translate research into practice
• Lead interpersonal, diverse teams
• Analyze epidemiological data
• Implement evidence-based protocols
• Master health informatics
• Shape health care policy