Nurse burnout continues to hinder the healthcare system across care settings. Hospital margins are thinning, and allocating resources to nurse retention and engagement is imperative to offset the cost of losing nurses. The average cost of turnover for one bedside RN is $52,350 – which can add up to expenses between $6.6M-$10.5M, according to a recent retention and staffing report stating “each percent change in RN turnover will cost/save the average hospital an additional $380,600/year.” In skilled nursing facilities, regulated staffing levels will likely impact quality care scores and reimbursements in the future. Staffing and reducing turnover are top of mind for healthcare leaders everywhere, even more so as they continue to look ahead to 2024.
Overcoming Nurse Burnout
While the industry challenge of nurse burnout is clear, the right approach to ease nurses’ burden is harder to decipher. Staffing leaders must balance competing priorities, such as investing in expensive agency labor versus racking up internal hours and offering nurses more flexibility to choose the best shifts while ensuring every shift is filled.
Three themes are among the top strategies to address nurse burnout: improving communication, increasing flexibility, and supplementing staff.
1. Improving Communication Between Nurses and Managers
Many organizations need help in traditional staffing workflows, tediously tracking multiple spreadsheets or using one-by-one phone calls or text messages to make scheduling adjustments and fill last-minute openings. This approach is not just time-consuming; it’s disruptive, siloed, and does not take advantage of widely accepted and expected technology.
With healthcare workforce software to deploy one-to-many communications, nurse leaders can post shifts, set rules for shift selection, and relay scheduling needs quickly – for example, by implementing a first-come, first-served open shift approach or shift bidding based on seniority or other factors. This respects nurses’ time and frees up time for nurse leaders to focus on their team’s growth and development, supporting operations, and improving patient care.
2. Giving Nurses More Flexibility
More shifts are not the answer to nurse burnout – but more scheduling options could be. With real-time scheduling available at their fingertips, nurses have the necessary flexibility. More choice empowers them to select schedule changes that best fit their work-life balance. It gives nurses the freedom to trade shifts or take on open shifts and makes them feel like they have control over their schedule, motivating them to do their best work.
Greater scheduling flexibility can reduce the likelihood of no-shows or call-outs and reengage nurses in their work, preventing turnover. Meanwhile, nurse leaders can ensure these individual choices are made with commitment rules in mind by defining scheduling rules that make their staffing software work with their team’s unique needs.
3. Supplementing Staff with Agency Nurses
For some healthcare leaders, agency staff can be an expensive response to reducing burnout and attrition. However, it could be the more affordable option in the long run. Compared to the cost of losing a nurse and the time it takes to hire a new nurse, the investment in supplemental agency staff could greatly outweigh the costs of staff turnover. If managed well, agency staff becomes an extension of the team – used as needed, but not the immediate response to every open shift.
At the core of all these decisions is data and using available technology. Schedulers must have confidence in who is doing what, when it’s happening, and where it’s taking place. Clear, at-a-glance staffing data differentiates between taking a one-size-fits-all approach and making appropriate staffing adjustments based on an organization’s most significant contributors to burnout and resignations.
Accessible staffing data revenue objectives and organizational goals empower healthcare leaders to take a holistic approach. They can weigh their options and resources from a united front and choose investments to target specific challenges while understanding the impact this may have on another aspect of the organization.
Smarter Planning Leads to Reduced Stress, Higher Satisfaction
While there are many options to address nurse burnout, one thing is clear: better staffing management is necessary. In fact, 57% of nurses planning to leave the workforce would reconsider returning to their position if their workplace implemented a more flexible approach to scheduling and shift management.
With data and a smart workforce management solution, staffing leaders can make thoughtful, more informed choices that fluctuate seamlessly with day-to-day, real-time scheduling needs. Nurses can impact their schedule and sign up for shifts that give them the best work-life balance through technology customized for their practice. Managers can refocus their time to make strategic staffing decisions. And ultimately, patients get high-quality, uninterrupted care.
Throughout history, new technologies have always sparked legitimate fears that some jobs will be radically changed or eliminated due to innovation. The telegraph, the telephone, the tractor, the steam engine, the internet, robotics, artificial intelligence — each of these developments has brought some form of change in the job market, the viability of particular professions and skills, and how things get done.
When it comes to nurses and the nursing profession, innovative technologies might give us pause to consider what nurses do, how they perform specific tasks, and if the profession might stand to lose something.
While medication-dispensing robots, telemetry, electronic fetal monitoring, artificial intelligence, and other technological advances have altered our work as nurses, fears that robots will replace us and send nurses into the historical career dustbin are likely unfounded. New opportunities are being created as nurses embrace emerging technologies and become educated and trained in valuable 21st-century skills.
The Human Touch
Nurses are the most trusted profession in the United States because they touch patients literally and figuratively daily. The trust between nurses and their patients is born mainly from the human-to-human interactions that make nursing a compelling combination of an art and a science.
No matter how efficient a robot may be in doling out medications and how powerful artificial intelligence and machine learning may become, the absolute humanity of nursing care would be impossible to replace with a machine entirely.
The physical assessment of a newborn, the expression of empathy, and the practice of hospice nursing are just three areas that come to mind where the human side of nursing care is so utterly crucial. While an immersive virtual or mixed reality application could be utilized to educate a patient about dialysis or provide basic diabetic teaching, no application can take the place of a nurse sitting on the edge of a patient’s bed, holding their hand, and providing emotionally intelligent supportive counseling as the patient mentally prepares for surgery.
The human side of nursing is the art that maintains the sacredness of the nurse-patient bond. Nursing may be partially driven by plans of care developed within the parameters of the nursing process, but where the rubber hits the road is where person-to-person interaction informs the patient experience and the nurse’s calling.
Nursing Embracing Technology
Rather than considering how technological advances might cause nurses to be replaced by machines, the more likely new reality is that of nurses embracing technology in the interest of their careers.
Nursing informatics has opened new career paths for nurses interested in computers, data management, and analytics. Nurses who master their facilities’ electronic medical records can make themselves invaluable as super users capable of training other nurses and staff in using an EMR.
Nurses pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees in informatics can pursue previously closed opportunities, including positions such as Chief Nursing Informatics Officer (CNIO). For nurses who can find such opportunities, companies creating new bedside technologies and digital interfaces will need skilled clinicians who can act as consultants on testing devices and applications that have yet to be ready for prime time.
The Robots Won’t Be Replacing You
Although science fiction could tell an entirely different story, the reality is that we won’t be seeing autonomous robot nurses speeding from room to room, providing hands-on patient care without ever needing a break for dinner or the bathroom, at least not anytime soon.
Rather than considering how the robots may be coming for your nursing job, perhaps it’s best to focus on how you can embrace them and leverage these new developments to the advantage of your nursing career.
Don’t worry — the robots won’t be rolling into town next week to staff the ICU. But if you’re a nurse wondering how the tech revolution could revolutionize your nursing career, there’s much to learn and new opportunities just around the corner.
Virtual nurses may work from behind computer screens, but their impact is felt throughout healthcare as their expertise is increasingly integrated into patient care and nursing workflows.
Since the invention of the telephone in the modern digital age, healthcare providers have used telecommunication tools to bring clinical expertise and care to wherever patients need them. Regardless of the technology, nurses play essential roles throughout telemedicine, usually conveying or using insights or information.
Simply put, virtual nursing is the practice of nursing using telecommunication and telehealth tools and technologies.
Initially focused on increasing access to care in rural and remote areas and responding to the aftermath of natural disasters, telehealth, and virtual nurses have become part of the care provided to thousands of patients across the globe every day. They now support clinical teams throughout the patient care continuum to help ease the overwhelming demands and address serious healthcare issues.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many care providers considered how telehealth tools could be used in innovative ways in the care of patients. The United States Government Accountability Office reported a 15-fold increase over the prepandemic level in telehealth use among Medicaid beneficiaries. Numbers skyrocketed from 2.1 million in the year before the pandemic to 32.5 million from March 2020 to February 2021.
Teresa Rincon, PhD, RN, FCCM, is a pioneer in virtual nursing. In 2003, she was one of the first nurses to practice from behind a camera as part of a teleICU. Today, she is an assistant professor at UMass Chan Medical School and its Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing in Worcester, Massachusetts, and a senior telehealth consultant with Blue Cirrus Consulting, Greenville, South Carolina. She recently served as editor for a symposium of articles on virtual nursing for AACN Advanced Critical Care, a journal published by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN).
When Rincon became a virtual nurse, there were fewer than 1,000 teleICU beds in the United States. Over 20 years, that number has grown 20x, with an estimated one in eight ICU patients now monitored remotely.
“The level of technology acceptance has created opportunities to apply the virtual nursing model to ‘virtually’ anywhere,” she said. “The ability to leverage clinical expertise across and despite geographical boundaries is an efficient and cost-effective way to ensure safe, timely, and effective care in critical situations and routine care delivery.”
Immediate Access to Clinical Support
Virtual nurses regularly assist with tasks that do not require physical proximity to the patient, such as patient-family education, completing admission and discharge tasks, and participating in two-person verification processes.
During a patient assessment, a remote nurse and an on-site nurse can efficiently work in tandem, with one managing tasks that require physical proximity to the patient and the other completing tasks such as clinical documentation, patient-family education, and expert nurse surveillance.
Virtual nurses provide an additional layer of clinical support to nurses at the bedside. At the push of a button, bedside clinicians have immediate access to additional nursing support.
This ease of access gives bedside nurses peace of mind, knowing that an experienced fellow nurse is not only assisting in monitoring for changes in a patient’s status but is available to collaborate and assist with care at a moment’s notice.
Virtual nurses serve as valuable mentors to novice nurses as they develop into competent and confident clinicians. They also may support travel or agency nurses to help bridge knowledge gaps caused by a lack of familiarity with specific facilities and policies. In addition, peer-to-peer collaboration can help on-site colleagues feel more supported.
Lisa-Mae Williams, PhD, RN, CCRN, is the chief nursing officer at Intercept Telehealth, Weston, Florida.
“In addition to caring for patients, virtual nurses are helping to address the experience gap by providing an extra layer of support and expertise to the on-site team,” Williams said. “Knowledge and expertise are precious commodities, especially when caring for critically ill patients.”
Beyond the ICU
Virtual nurses and tele-critical care (TCC) programs have become more pervasive, thanks to technological advances, modalities expansions, and the number of patients served.
“We’ve seen significant growth in the number of tele-critical care services, as they expand beyond traditional critical care areas, including to emergency departments, medical-surgical units, and even home-care settings,” said Fiona Winterbottom, DNP, MSN, APRN, ACNS-BC, ACHPN, CCRN, clinical nurse specialist, at Ochsner Health in New Orleans. Advances in technology have led to increased use of mobile carts, which bring the expertise of intensivists and TCC nurses wherever they may be needed. In the emergency department, they can proactively manage patients waiting for hospital admission, providing earlier access to interventions and improving outcomes.
Remote clinicians can also support rapid response teams to help stabilize a patient with a deteriorating condition. The patient can often remain in their current unit and avoid transfer to an ICU. An added benefit is that the mobile cart can stay in the patient’s room, allowing the virtual nurse to continue monitoring them for a defined period.
There are also opportunities to create an observation space in the emergency department where patients who need short-term care for diabetic ketoacidosis, drug/alcohol overdose, allergic reactions, and other issues can get the expert care they need without being admitted to another unit.
Beyond the hospital, wearable devices and monitoring kits that link to an on-call automated system and a mobile app can help patients self-manage at home with a medical support system.
Unlimited Options
Ryan Morcrette, BSN, RN, CEN, is the director of virtual care and clinical communications at St. Luke’s University Health Network in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. “The concept of virtual nursing will continue to mature along with the technology to support it, and we’re going to look back and wonder how we ever provided healthcare without this asset,” Morcrette said. “It will become second nature for patients, bedside nurses, and other clinicians.”
“As we look to the future, we have to think about how to harness the knowledge and skills we need to improve the care we provide to patients. We need innovative solutions to manage the impacts of the global nurse staffing shortages successfully,” Rincon said. “Thanks to telehealth technologies, an expert can be located anywhere in the world and connect with someone who needs their assistance.”
Whether nurses think their job includes data informatics or not, it does in one way or another. For almost any nurse, data is a touch point in their day, whether they work at the bedside, in an independent office, or a boardroom.
“Data is critical,” says Andrew Awoniyi, ND, RN, NI-BC, education director and board member of the American Nursing Informatics Association (ANIA). “It underlies everything we do.” When a fellowship experience revealed the way technology could have a positive and significant impact on healthcare, Awoniyi says he developed a new understanding of how nurses can use it. “It opened my eyes to how you deliver the best healthcare,” he says.
Many nurses hear informatics and think it does not apply to their jobs, but the opposite is true, says Awoniyi. “There’s a school of thought that all nurses are nurse informaticists,” he says. “Everyone is using data whether they fully understand it or not.”
Often, a nurse’s day includes responsibilities unrelated to numbers or patterns in data. Still, those responsibilities and the equipment or directions they rely on are a direct result of information that has been collected and analyzed.
It’s All About Data
“When a new initiative comes out, or there is a new process or new product, that is all because of data,” says Kathleen Ulanday, MBA, MHA, BSN, RN, NI-BC, CPHIMS, and a senior clinical informatics specialist at Texas Children’s Hospital. For example, a new process that aims to solve an identified workflow issue is often found because measurements indicate needed improvement. Once implemented, the new process will be measured as well. All the data produced during those assessments reveals patterns or other information that can influence everything from how nurses dispense medication to shift adjustments.
The most basic nursing process of identifying a problem, assessing what is being done, intervening, and evaluating all relies on some collection of information, Awoniyi says. Assessing a patient uses the data produced through vitals, lab results, and tests, so everyone from a bedside nurse to a chief nursing officer knows how to check those results to help direct patient needs. “Nursing is holistic, and everything we do around that involves data,” he says. “It is not foreign to us.”
Ideally, nurses work more efficiently when any change is implemented to improve an outcome because they gain fact-based information that can be applied broadly, says Ulanday. If a new process has a more significant positive impact on a cardiovascular patient population than a gastro one, there’s an opportunity to learn why. “Nurses might notice those patients go home quicker and ask why is that,” she says. That discrepancy can trigger a deeper investigation into new areas needing attention.
Informatics Isn’t Just Computers
Nurses who are especially drawn to the idea of working as a nurse informaticist might be happy to know that gathering data doesn’t mean sitting in front of a computer all day. Data, Awoniyi says, has a way of helping nurses when the results are interpreted and applied. And with artificial intelligence leading to advances in medical robotics and more targeted applications, nursing informatics is advancing rapidly. It can be a significant factor in closing gaps in healthcare access. The recent expansion of telehealth shows how technology expands potential. As the population shifts and more people are living longer and with more complex conditions, data, says Awoniyi, can help close the gap in healthcare because it can offer healthcare in settings that are located far from high-tech hospitals.
While data is something that nurses can point to as proof of something working (or not), there’s another unexpected benefit to using data to help guide how nurses perform their jobs and care for patients in any setting. Compliance with a new process can improve a workflow, says Ulanday. When nurses see that improvement, their motivation and morale increase.
An In-demand Career Path
As data output grows, the industry needs nurses who use data efficiently and know how to interpret and apply the data to different nursing scenarios. “There’s a lot of data that is generated,” Awoniyi says, “and we must understand that.”
Whether they want to switch careers or not, Awoniyi recommends that nurses understand how and why technology is incorporated into healthcare processes and settings. “Be willing to contribute,” he says. Partner with other nurses, look at how new systems impact nursing workflows and offer feedback on what might improve the process or quality.
Informatics opens up nursing jobs for everything from a nursing informatics specialist or clinical informatics specialist to that of a professor or educator. According to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2022 Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey, 60 percent of the 1,118 respondents reported annual salaries of at least $100,000. The survey also showed how nursing informatics roles are positioned in organizations, with 34% of respondents reporting to information systems/technology, 33% to informatics, and 30% to nursing. Reflecting on this kind of role’s medical and technical aspects, most respondents said they report to two departments more often than just one.
How Data and Healthcare Work Together
Even as informatics helps nurses and patients, it does require time and investment, so backing from leadership is critical, say Awoniyi and Ulanday. At Texas Children’s Hospital, Ulanday says the Magnet® status of the hospital requires that the perspective and experiences of bedside nurses, who give hands-on patient care and know how a workflow is helping or not, are included in leadership’s decision-making.
Nurses who are interested in learning more can start by reaching out to their organization’s technical team to ask questions and gain insight into how technology impacts healthcare, says Ulanday. She says to join a professional organization like ANIA to hear about the latest developments and bring those back to leadership.
Ulanday says nurses know it takes time to learn and adapt to new technology, but they also find it will save them time in the long run. It also has a significant safety impact, as data can improve how something is done. Implementing a new workflow based on those findings can eliminate outdated processes and improve patient safety and outcomes.
“As we look to the future, data needs to be a critical part of that,” says Awoniyi. “Understand how data is collected, analyzed, and interpreted. It’s then about how to leverage that data to bring about change.”
Most nurses are familiar with evidence-based practice (EBP), using research-proven healthcare techniques to enhance patient care and the nursing environment and practices. And the benefits of EBP-led care are well documented. However, with all the positive results, EBP must consistently be taught or implemented in daily nursing practice.
Despite various studies that show the benefits of evidence-based practice for nurses, patients, and healthcare organizations, adopting the practice could be more widespread. Whether or not they work in an environment that supports EBP, nurses can learn more to apply EBP.
Why Use Evidence-based Practice?
What exactly is evidence-based practice? Kim M. Bissett PhD, MBA, RN, and director of the Center for Evidence-based Practice at the Johns Hopkins Institute, specializes in evidence-based practice and says, “At the most basic level, evidence-based practice (EBP) is a problem-solving approach to the decision-making process that uses the best available scientific and experiential evidence, coupled with critical thinking, to improve care.”
The method works, says Bernadette Melnyk, PhD, APRN-CNP, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN, vice president for Health Promotion and the Helene Fuld Health Trust Professor of Evidence-based Practice at The Ohio State University. “We have such a strong body of evidence that when EBP is implemented, that patient outcomes and safety is better,” she says. “We know that.” With a patient-focused nursing priority, practicing nurses find inspiration in using innovative and successful methods. “Evidence-based practice is the most essential part of the nursing profession,” says Michael Williams, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, a lead nurse practitioner at the Center for Health Empowerment-CHE in Austin, TX. “As a collective, organized workforce, it ensures we are keeping up with the demands of healthcare.” As healthcare delivery becomes more complex, Williams says evidence-based practice helps nurses answer their questions. “It allows us to be in a position to keep up with the demands and always be innovating.”
Patient care is only enhanced when identified and proven practices are followed. “EBP ensures patients are receiving the most current care using the best available evidence,” says Bissett. “By implementing evidence-based interventions, nurses can enhance the quality of care patients receive. For example, implementing evidence-based guidelines and protocols minimizes errors and complications such as medication errors, risk of infections, and unnecessary procedures that could lead to complications.”
Evidence-based Practice Is Good for Nurses
As Williams notes, nurses can pause and reexamine their actions when new evidence-based practices are introduced. “It’s exciting when we have the opportunity to learn something new,” he says. “It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, giving us a chance to reset. When new guidelines pop up, it appeals to that side of nurses that are innovators or creators.”
The kind of pause that Williams mentions also refreshes nurses. “Nurses can use EBP for a variety of reasons. Some include improving or validating current practice, identifying better ways to achieve patient outcomes, and answering clinical questions,” says Bissett.
Stumbling Blocks to Widespread Adaptation
Despite all the good that comes from EBP, complex factors often result in an inconsistent application. A 2021 study found that moving research findings into regular practice takes at least 15 years. Despite medical and technological advances, that number has barely shortened in the past 20 years.
Other studies show that most nurses need to be more competent in EBP. Roadblocks to more widespread adaptation of EBP include a need for a targeted curriculum, too few mentors to show EBP in everyday work, a minimal amount of EBP investment by healthcare organizations, and a fallback to traditional nursing practices.
“In some nursing units, it is not uncommon to have practices persist even after scientific evidence has proven those practices to be ineffective,” says Bissett. “The nurses continue to practice the way they have always practiced. This persists until nurses start to question their practices and start looking for better alternatives.”
Gaining EBP Understanding
Nurses can still gain the needed knowledge even in organizations with little defined EBP work. At work, they can also bring research demonstrating the efficacy of EBP to management. “People are able to negotiate better with evidence,” says Melnyk, noting it can help nurses advocate for change or increase investment.
In general, active and involved nurses will become aware of new guidelines or evidence-based practices as these new developments emerge, and they can position themselves to gain more knowledge. If EBP isn’t part of a nurse’s training, Melnyk suggests nurses take a short, free course to familiarize themselves with the 7 steps of EBP or a more intensive course for mastery of skills.
Williams says that nurses may glean excellent information from listening to two or three podcasts in their specialty. They could also subscribe to a few nursing magazines or journals to keep abreast of the latest news. Getting involved in the nursing community by joining a professional organization is excellent. Williams is an active member of DNPs of Color. Bissett says setting up a Google alert for specific topics is an easy way to discover new information. She says conferences are also an excellent source of the most current information.
There’s also a link between nurses who practice with the most proven methods and their well-being, says Melnyk. She says that even the most highly skilled nurses can’t make much progress if they are burned out and acutely stressed. “You have to tackle this in the culture,” she says.
Attaining that additional knowledge is a powerful tool in nursing practice and a professional motivator that leads to more job satisfaction and even better work for individuals and teams. Melnyk says that if nurses negotiate for change and are met with endless pushback or flat-out denial, they may want to consider moving on to a different organization.
Bissett notes that their confidence grows when nurses are equipped to make informed decisions about patient care and have the resources to consider factors such as efficacy, safety, and patient preferences. The critical thinking that comes with EBP means nurses learn something new and have the tools to analyze why it works and then apply it to their practice, she says.
EBP as Workplace Culture
The nursing community offers exceptional learning opportunities if nurses are open to different perspectives. Williams says his position as an experienced nurse means that he learns from listening to the questions and ideas of new nurses. “That’s something that isn’t talked about enough,” he says. “Student nurses will say, ‘This is what I learned.’ And it’s different from what I learned in nursing school.” Some questions can prompt a reexamination of practices. A workplace culture that encourages information sharing and is open to all questions is one in which nurses can learn from each other in a way that is to everyone’s advantage.
A constant rotation of new nurses and information necessitates continual evaluation of practices. “It is important to understand that once an EBP project is complete and a practice change has been implemented, it does not mean that issue is closed,” says Bissett. “Nurses must continue to verify that their practices are in line with current best evidence.”
Nurses, says Bissett, need to be active consumers of evidence. “We should be constantly looking for ways to improve our practice and to use the best evidence,” she says. “We have to stay well-informed, and that requires some action on our part.”
Embarking on a Doctor of Nursing Practice Program (DNP) is a significant stride towards advancing your career in healthcare. Amidst the increasing demand for advanced nursing professionals, selecting the right DNP program becomes crucial. The DNP program has many options: online, hybrid, and in-person.
However, before diving into the intricacies of program selection and study strategies, ask yourself this most important question: Why pursue a DNP degree?
Clarity on your motivation, the purpose of obtaining your doctorate, and your post-graduation plans sets the foundation for a successful journey. There are various potential roles for the DNP graduate, which include roles in nursing education, administration, health policy, nurse practitioner, or informatics. The DNP program prepares nurses to generate new knowledge through innovation of practice change and translating evidence to practice.
This article explores the top 10 tips for prospective DNP students, covering various aspects such as program selection, study strategies, the importance of a study partner, curriculum evaluation, cost considerations, and understanding program outcomes and final expectations.
Top 10 Tips for Success in a DNP Program
1. Research and Select the Right Program: Choosing the right DNP program is crucial. Consider factors such as accreditation, faculty expertise, and the program’s alignment with your career goals. Thorough research ensures a program that meets your expectations and provides a solid foundation for your future in nursing. Speak to other nurses in the current DNP program to get a sense. Selecting a program that meets your personal needs and that is flexible is imperative for your success.
2. Understand the Curriculum: Please read every detail in the curriculum before committing to a DNP program. Assess if the coursework aligns with your professional interests and career goals. A well-rounded curriculum ensures a comprehensive education and equips you with the skills needed in today’s complex healthcare environment. To be fully transparent, I purposely selected a doctoral program that did not have statistics because I did not want to retake it! However, the program did have a tremendously helpful economics course.
3. Evaluate Program Costs: Financial considerations are critical. Evaluate the overall cost of the DNP program, including tuition, fees, and any additional expenses. Look for potential scholarships, grants, or employer assistance programs to alleviate the financial burden. Most institutions have a payment plan that you can set up if needed. I did a lot of research before selecting my university. It was vital for me to have a physical university with an excellent reputation and history. I strongly recommend being strategic and not just paying extra money to have a prestigious school name on your resume.
4. Create a Realistic Study Plan: Balancing a DNP program with work and family commitments requires careful planning. Develop a realistic study plan considering your workload, responsibilities, and preferred learning pace. Creating a realistic plan can prevent burnout and reduce anxiety. I did most of my schoolwork at night because everyone was sleeping. Plus, I know that I function better at night.
5. Consider a Study Partner/Colleague support: A colleague or study partner can enhance your DNP experience. Collaborative learning fosters a supportive environment, provides different perspectives, and facilitates sharing resources and study materials. I had two close friends in the program, and having that continued support was instrumental to my success. We held each other accountable and called daily to check on each other to ensure we were ok or remind each other to submit assignments on time.
6. Utilize Online Resources: Use online resources and platforms to supplement your learning. Many DNP programs offer virtual libraries, discussion forums, and additional study materials. Embracing technology can enhance your understanding of the coursework and make your life easier. Please use all the resources you have available to you. Please learn how to do a proper library search for articles because it will save you hours of work. The librarian can be your best friend throughout the program.
7. Prioritize Self-Care: Balancing work, family, and a complex academic program requires self-care. Prioritize physical and mental well-being to sustain energy levels and focus throughout the DNP journey. This is harder said than done. I strongly recommend scheduling self-care time and activities. The DNP program is a rigorous program with high demands. Real talk: I cried several times and wanted to quit. However, I kept thinking of my kids, and my motivation kicked into gear.
8. Effective Time Management: Mastering time management is crucial for DNP success. Create a schedule that allocates dedicated time for coursework, work obligations, and personal commitments. Efficient time management ensures a well-rounded and fulfilling experience. It sounds silly, but please read the entire syllabus before your course begins.
9. Stay Proactive and Communicate with Professors: Maintain an open line of communication with your professors. Staying proactive ensures that you receive timely guidance, support, and feedback. I procrastinated during my DNP program, so I would not recommend it. Establishing a solid rapport with your professors can positively impact your academic journey. I sometimes found asking for sample examples for specific assignments helpful in understanding the expectations better.
10. Understand Program Outcomes and Final Expectations: Be clear about the DNP program’s ultimate expectations and ask many questions. Understand whether you must implement a study or present a project proposal. I had to submit my study to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval. From personal experience, I strongly recommend creating a toolkit. I created a Stress Reduction Toolkit for Nurses. I often joked about using those same stress reduction strategies during the DNP program. Knowing the program outcomes ensures you are prepared for your academic journey and can confidently meet the final expectations.
I strongly recommend not comparing your DNP journey to anyone else. Please give yourself grace and be patient. I failed a DNP course, my DNP proposal course, and I was distraught. It was a long, complicated story that ended in a denied appeal from the Dean. I was distraught when it was happening; however, I realized that perhaps God had a different path for me. We know that not all paths are linear, and neither was mine. It taught me to be more patient and more precise.
I recently completed my DNP program in organizational leadership. My goal is to combine my experience in emergency medicine, education, and leadership into an exciting role where I can apply all my knowledge and skills. I am passionate about education, career development, and growth for all nurses, particularly novice nurses.
I am dedicated to improving workplace culture and wellness due to my previous experiences with toxic workplaces, discrimination, and bullying. My mission is to empower all nurses globally to pursue their personal, professional, and business goals. I started my DNP journey three years ago, and it has been a roller coaster ride. My experience of juggling a full-time job, a young family, and a business highlights that completing a DNP program is feasible and immensely rewarding with determination and a strategic approach.
Enrolling in a Doctorate Nurse Program can be overwhelming, but success is achievable with careful consideration and strategic planning. Integrating these top 10 tips into your DNP journey allows you to navigate the challenges and reap the rewards of advanced nursing education.
Remember, there is never a “right” time to start; it’s about finding the time that works for you and committing to the journey.
