HILO — The University of Hawaii at Hilo School of Nursing’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program has been awarded permanent status by the Board of Regents.
HILO — The University of Hawaii at Hilo School of Nursing’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program has been awarded permanent status by the Board of Regents.
The board’s recent action changed the program’s designation from a “provisional” to an “established” program.
“The BOR’s decision validates the outstanding quality of the DNP, along with the efforts of our nursing faculty and staff who have worked hard to develop and administer this important program,” said Alice Davis, director of the School of Nursing. “Our DNP graduates are going to be a tremendous part of the health-care workforce in Hawaii, and can help address the nursing faculty shortage unfolding across the country.”
The Doctor of Nursing Practice is a terminal degree in nursing and began at UH-Hilo in 2012. The program provides training to become family nurse practitioners, which are considered primary-care providers with global prescriptive authority. The DNP also has a leadership track for those interested in this area of practice.
The program objective is to provide nurses with doctoral-level education focusing on primary care, cultural diversity, health disparities, health promotion and disease prevention in rural communities.
The UH-Hilo DNP is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, which awarded the program the full five-year accreditation status in 2014. Davis said the board’s action comes at a good time, with DNP’s accreditation up for review in spring 2019.
“Becoming an established program lends credence to the DNP program’s contributions to the community and provides assurance to the community and future students that it will remain a viable academic program in rural Hawaii,” Davis said. “The recognition given by the (Board of Regents) will be an important milestone of success that the accreditation body looks at when reviewing the program for academic and practice excellence. This definitely bodes well for the DNP program going forward.”
For more information on the DNP program, contact Davis by email at aedavis@hawaii.edu.
