Nurse Leadership and Nurse Administration Degree Programs

If there’s one singular nursing school program that is ubiquitous, it could be the degree tracks in Nursing Leadership or Administration. Why? Healthcare is undergoing serious growing pains and up until now experienced RNs have been largely ignored “upstairs.” But now that things have gotten dicey—not the least of which is the nursing shortage—upper-level healthcare movers and shakers have thought otherwise about engaging experienced nurses.

Nursing Leadership programs clearly separate the undergrads from the grad-level nurses and in some cases from post-grads. Serious candidates only, but those interested are urged to pursue these innovative nursing school programs.

  • At the nation’s university level schools of nursing candidates can find scores of nursing leadership, nurse entrepreneur, nurse administrator and the like programs. Their unique quality is blending aspects of the business world with advanced nursing practice and introducing healthcare issues and organizations to the mix.
  • Online nursing leadership programs are popular. This teaching method works since this program is not clinical in nature, but business-centric. Instead of hands-on clinical candidates could be required to participate in an internship.

Prerequisites to most Nursing Leadership schools: a BSN with at least one or two years of nursing practice.

Role of Nurse Leader

Professional RN Leaders serve as decision-makers in various levels of healthcare and nursing administration—in hospitals, large medical centers, university medical and nursing schools, corporations, insurance companies, home health nursing, public and community health organizations, and in continued care facilities. Most work closely with other administrative decision-makers to support, create and evaluate patient and healthcare delivery systems that follow best practices and offer constant improvement to antiquated models.

He or she in a role as Nurse Leader must be confident in their nursing skills and in their staffs, able to brainstorm viable solutions – which means they must first have a solid concept of contemporary healthcare systems – and be supportive of other’s strategies and ideas in a collaborative environment.

You’ll discover a number of different types of nursing leader roles as indicated by some of the various certificate and MSN concentrations: clinical nurse leadership, health systems manager, nurse manager, for example.

Curriculum

In an MSN degree program nursing students will first be engaged in core Masters level coursework before moving to the concentration in Leadership and Management. Curriculum commonly includes:

  • Healthcare economics
  • Healthcare finance
  • Healthcare organizations and systems
  • Business management and leadership strategies
  • Evidence-based research
  • Information systems
  • Human Resources
  • Healthcare marketing

Nurse leaders are a critical component in a very changeable industry. Find out where you fit.

Explore Your Nursing Degree Options Today!