2026-2027 Catalog 
    
    Jun 15, 2026  
2026-2027 Catalog

Health Systems Leadership, DNP


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The Health Systems Leadership Doctor of Nursing Practice (HSL-DNP) degree program at the University of San Francisco is designed for the master’s-prepared nurse. The HSL-DNP degree program will prepare graduates for advanced level nursing in a selected area of concentration. The program offers students the opportunity in three select concentrations: (1) Education and Simulation; (2) Management; or (3) Population Health Leadership. Through dedicated immersion learning experiences, the student will apply advanced level nursing knowledge and skills specific to their chosen area of concentration.


The HSL-DNP program is designed to align to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) standard for advanced level nursing with specialty preparation (DNP Fact Sheet). In addition, the DNP program will meet the AACN Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education (2021)

Program Learning Outcomes


Knowledge for Nursing Practice:

The learner will integrate, translate, and apply established and evolving disciplinary nursing knowledge and ways of knowing, as well as knowledge from other disciplines, including a foundation in liberal arts and natural and social sciences to form the basis for clinical judgment and innovation in nursing practice and  the practice of professional nursing.

Person-Centered Care:

The learner will practice holistic, individualized, just, respectful, compassionate, coordinated, evidence-based, and developmentally appropriate person-centered care focused on the individual within multiple complicated contexts, including family and/or important others.

Population Health:

The learner will participate in collaborative activities with both traditional and non-traditional partnerships from affected communities, public health, industry, academia, health care, local government entities, and others for the improvement of equitable population health.

Scholarship for Nursing Discipline:

The learner will generate, synthesize, translate, apply, and disseminate nursing knowledge to improve health and transform health care. 

Quality and Safety:

The learner will employ established and emerging principles of safety and improvement science as core values of nursing practice and enhance quality and minimize risk of harm to patients and providers through both system effectiveness and individual performance.

Interprofessional Partnerships:

The learner will demonstrate Intentional collaboration across professions and with care team members, patients, families, communities, and other stakeholders to optimize care, enhance the healthcare experience, and strengthen outcomes.

Systems-Based Practice:

The learner will effectively and proactively coordinate resources to provide safe, quality, equitable care to diverse populations, leading within complex systems of health care.

 

Informatics and Healthcare Technologies:

The learner will demonstrate the use of information and communication technologies and informatics processes to provide care, gather data, form information to drive decision making, and support professionals as they expand knowledge and wisdom for practice and improve the delivery of safe, high-quality, and efficient healthcare services.

Professionalism

The learner will form and cultivate a sustainable professional nursing identity, accountability, perspective, collaborative disposition, and comportment that reflects nursing’s characteristics and values.

Personal, Professional, and Leadership Development:

The learner will participate in activities and self-reflection that foster personal health, resilience, and well-being, lifelong learning, and support the acquisition of nursing expertise and assertion of leadership.

Jesuit Values:

The learner will demonstrate compassionate care for the whole person by integrating Jesuit values of cura personalis, persons for other, contemplatives in action, fostering a commitment to lifelong learning, social justice, solidarity with vulnerable populations, and ethical decision-making in their practice.

Major Requirements (38-56 units)


Year 1: Fall Semester (7-10 units)


Year 2: Fall Semester (6-11 units)


Year 2: Spring Semester (7-8 units)


Year 3: Fall Semester (5-12 units)


  • NURS 724P - HSL-DNP Practicum II
  • NURS 773P - DNP Project III

Concentrations:


Students may also select a concentration in Education and Simulation Management  or Population Health Leadership 

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