NUR 408: RN-BSN Capstone: Advancing the Professional Nursing Role

This capstone course is the culmination of the RN-BSN program and provides students with the opportunity to synthesize and apply the knowledge, skills, and competencies acquired throughout the curriculum. Emphasis is placed on integrating leadership, evidence-based practice, population health, informatics, quality improvement, and healthcare policy to address patient, population, organizational, and healthcare-system outcomes. Students analyze organizational and healthcare-system processes, population-health data, and social determinants of health to identify disparities and develop strategies that promote quality, safety, access, and health equity.

Through a faculty-guided practice-based learning experience, students engage with an approved nursing or healthcare practice environment, consult with a practice-site liaison and appropriate stakeholders, and examine an authentic quality, safety, population-health, organizational, or systems-level issue. Students use evidence, authorized and de-identified data, informatics tools, and professional stakeholder feedback to develop and evaluate an implementation-ready quality-improvement or professional practice-change proposal.

The capstone project incorporates leadership principles, interprofessional collaboration, performance measurement, financial and resource considerations, ethical and legal responsibilities, change management, and sustainability planning. Students present or discuss the completed proposal with an appropriate professional stakeholder and refine the project based on the feedback received. The proposed practice change is not implemented as part of the course, and students do not provide direct patient care through the capstone experience. The course emphasizes professional accountability and the role of the baccalaureate-prepared nurse as a leader and advocate in improving healthcare outcomes for diverse populations.