DNP Leadership Program Online
Our ACEN-accredited online Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program with a specialization in executive leadership prepares master’s-educated nurses to immediately step into healthcare leadership roles. With an emphasis on relevant curriculum, students examine legislative policy issues and economics, improve their critical thinking skills and develop into more marketable leaders. Our online DNP program is ideal for executives and managers who currently hold or intend to pursue executive leadership positions in healthcare organizations during their careers. Students also benefit from interactions with nursing leaders from top U.S. healthcare organizations around the country such as Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic, UCLA Medical Center, Geisinger Health System and Spectrum Health System.
DNP Specializations
Questions? Join an Upcoming DNP Open House
Tues., Feb. 25, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. MDT
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Wed., Mar. 11, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. MDT
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Doctor of Nursing Practice Graduate Discusses Why She Chose DNP over Ph.D.
Jeneen Carmen, an American Sentinel University graduate discusses her experience in the DNP, Executive Leadership program. Her past management experience led her to choose a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree so that she could help drive evidence-based care.
Flexible and Fast Program
- Program is only 28 months long with rolling admission
- 100% online
- Year one: You choose between a four-day onsite residency in Denver or a two-week virtual residency
- Year two: one-day virtual residency
Affordable Tuition So You Can Earn Your DNP, Debt-Free*
Our competitive tuition ratesand various payment options allow most of our students to graduate debt-free*.
Relevant Curriculum
- Our DNP leadership program in executive leadership program develops five key competencies: Leadership, Business Intelligence, Finance, Health Policy, Health Services Research
- The curriculum is kept up-to-date, so students are prepared to deal with current issues in healthcare. Our program is accredited by ACEN, an accreditation valued by leading healthcare organizations.
DNP Executive Leadership Course Highlights
Our rigorous curriculum covers a breadth of issues in nursing and health care, giving nurses the foundation and skills to lead their organizations. Here are a few of the courses for the online DNP program:
- Leadership: Setting the Example (N700PE): Focuses on executive leadership in a dynamic health care environment. Students explore leadership theory and take into account organizational culture and governmental complexities.
- Healthcare Finance (N720PE): Covers economic ideas and models in the health care realm and provides students a working knowledge of the analytical tools used in contemporary health care.
- Health Services Research (N725PE): Students learn about a variety of health services research types and review studies to learn about quality research design.
- Strategic Planning (N760PE): Focuses on the organizational and institutional processes of defining an overarching strategy or direction for the organization, including decisional support for allocation of resources. Topics include tools to determine directions, strategies and courses of action. This course includes 75 hours of practice experience activities.
- Capstone Project (N740PE, N765PE and N770PE): This three-part capstone of the online doctorate nursing program begins with the identification of a problem statement and purpose statement, moves into the development of a research proposal and culminates with the implementation and analysis of the project. Students defend their final project to a committee, members of nursing leadership, and the public.
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DNP Executive Leadership Specialization Curriculum
Completion of the DNP, executive leadership specialization degree requires 42 credit hours. The expected length of the program is just over two years. The program is structured to have two short residencies (one onsite, one virtual), with the remainder of courses offered online in eight week modules.
View more information on DNP practice experiences.
Nurses without an MSN that only want the DNP
- Applicants with a non-nursing master’s complete three bridge courses, 400 total hours of practice experience, and then are admitted to the DNP program. An MSN is not earned in this program. (We highly recommend that if the student wants to teach, they choose the MSN option.)
- Please visit the Bridge-Course and Practicum Workshop page for course details.
Courses Credit Hours* OR101 Orientation 0 N700PE Leadership: Setting the Example 3 N725PE Health Services Research 3 N740PE Capstone Project I** 3 N705PE Health Policy 3 BUSI700PE Business Intelligence 3 N755PE Health Statistics 3 N758PE Advanced Statistics 3 N765PE Capstone Project II 3 N715PE Quality Management 3 N720PE Healthcare Finance 3 N735PE Contemporary Use of Health Information Technology 3 N761PE Strategic Leadership and Planning 3 Elective*** 3 Elective*** 3 Total Required Credits (14 courses) 42
* credit hours are equivalent to semester hours
** residency courses
*** contact your SSA before registration
The mission of the DNP program is to prepare highly qualified nurse leaders and nurse educators to serve in competitive healthcare and higher education settings.
Practice Experiences: A More Active Way to Learn
The online DNP program at American Sentinel University includes practice experiences. This is done to meet the accreditor requirement that RN to BSN, RN to MSN, MSN or DNP programs include practice experiences in the curricula to enable students to achieve the required educational competencies (AACN White Paper, Oct. 2012; DNP Essentials for Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice, 2006; ACEN 2013 Standards). These practice experiences have specific objectives, expected outcomes and competencies.
Practice experiences are not like the clinical experiences you completed to obtain your degree to become a registered nurse. Practice experiences do not involve hands-on patient care. They are designed to provide you with the opportunity to apply the concepts and knowledge you learn in the nursing courses. Practice experiences are an opportunity to get away from traditional reading and writing assignments; instead these assignments are replaced with more active assignments.
Why Choose American Sentinel
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DNP classes are online and designed for working professionals, giving you the convenience and control to participate in classes around your busy schedule.
Classes are only eight weeks in length.
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MySentinel® Student Support is our distinctive personal approach to helping students succeed. As a DNP student, you will work exclusively with our fantastic student success advisors, Abigail and Aaron, who will help guide you through graduation.
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Our competitive tuition rates and various payment options allow most of our students to graduate debt-free.*
* Based on 2019 data. This figure includes graduates paying out of pocket for their education and those receiving tuition reimbursement from their employer. The University also offers payment plans financed over four or nine-month increments depending on program of study that will allow a participant to graduate debt free.
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We have educated students at some of the top healthcare organizations in the country: Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, Johns Hopkins University, Kindred Healthcare, and the list goes on. These students along with many more have achieved personal goals, and new positions with their DNP, educational leadership specialization from American Sentinel University.
Are You Eligible?
The program is open to nurses who have an active and unencumbered RN license and an MSN from a regionally or nationally accredited institution.
Program Outcomes
What You’ll Get
- Real-world solutions for your organization’s challenges
- Connections to peers at leading organizations around the country
- A deeper understanding of educating the next generation of nurses
What You’ll Learn
- Appraise the needs of complex organizations as they go through strategic decision making and change implementation.
- Critique roles of leaders and collaborators in planning, providing, and evaluating healthcare.
- Generate strategic plans for organizational change by utilizing theoretical knowledge, meaningful data, and evidence-based practice while being culturally and ethnically sensitive.
- Summarize meaningful data that informs leadership using information technology.
- Design health policy that considers environmental social justice, consumer and other issues.
- Create new models to explain, predict, and improve the performance of organizations.
- Explain the role of healthcare finance in the health of an organization.
