Nursing Leadership (MSN)
Designed with the working, BSN-educated nurse in mind, our innovative Nursing Leadership MSN curriculum prepares you for roles as a nurse manager and leader. Drawing from the tradition of the Sisters of Mercy, who established Mercyhurst nearly a century ago on the values of compassion, service, respect, and integrity, we strive to educate mindful, merciful, compassionate nurse leaders.
It’s no secret that the job market for health care professionals is growing at a fast pace. Medical and health service management occupations are expected to grow by 32% through 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, nursing occupations are expected to grow by 7% over the same time period.
Whether you currently occupy a position of leadership in nursing or want to advance your career, a master’s in nursing leadership can help. Upon completing the program, you’ll be prepared to sit for and earn the Institute of Healthcare Improvement’s Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) credential.
Program Overview
Options: Master’s degree (MSN)
Location(s): 100% online
Credits: 32
Duration: Minimum 12 months
Cost: $500 per credit; $16,800 total
Deadline: Rolling admissions
Start term(s): Fall, spring, or summer semester
The Master’s Degree in Nursing program delivered via distance education at Mercyhurst University is accredited by the National League for Nursing Commission for Nursing Education Accreditation (NLN CNEA) located at 2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20037. 202-909-2487.
Department of Nursing Mission
The mission of the Department of Nursing is to consistently prepare knowledgeable, merciful, compassionate, creative, accountable and respectful nurses who embody a passion for excellence, lifelong learning, and true caring for all they encounter. This will be accomplished through a united faculty that will foster consistency, communication, teamwork in decision-making, and use of evidence-based practices in classroom and clinical settings.
MSN Program Philosophy
The Nursing Leadership graduate program provides a transformative education, preparing intellectually creative, merciful, compassionate, mindful and resilient nurse leaders whose relationship-based practice is informed by the evidence with a focus on the health and wellbeing of caregivers as well as those they serve.
The 32-credit Nursing Leadership MSN curriculum is designed with working professionals in mind, offering both a full-time, one-year option and a part-time, two-year option.
Full-Time, One-Year Option
With this option, you’ll complete more than one course per eight-week Mini (half-semester) term, allowing the program to be completed in one year.
Fall Semester
Mini 1: NURS 500: Theoretical & Philosophical Foundations of Care (Three credits)
Mini 1: NURS 600: Transforming Health Care: Information Systems & Technology (Three credits)
Mini 2: NURS 611: Health Care Finance & Economics (Three credits)
Mini 2: HCS 505: Creativity & Innovation (Three credits)
Spring Semester
Mini 3: NURS 506: Nurse as Scholar: Evidence-Based Practice (Three credits)
Mini 3: OL 502: Leadership & Organizational Behavior (Three credits)
Mini 4: NURS 604: Health Care Policy Analysis & Advocacy (Three credits)
Mini 4: NURS 508: Fostering Resilience (Three credits)
Summer Semester
Mini 5: NURS 573: Quality, Safety, & Value in Health Care (Four credits)
Mini 6: NURS 677: Integrative Nursing Capstone (Four credits)
Part-Time, Two-Year Option
With this option, you’ll complete one course per eight-week Mini (half-semester) term, allowing the program to be completed in two years.
Fall Semester (Year One)
Mini 1: NURS 500: Theoretical & Philosophical Foundations of Care (Three credits)
Mini 2: HCS 505: Creativity & Innovation (Three credits)
Spring Semester (Year One)
Mini 3: NURS 506: Nurse as Scholar: Evidence-Based Practice (Three credits)
Mini 4: NURS 508: Fostering Resilience (Three credits)
Summer Semester (Year One)
Mini 5: NURS 573: Quality, Safety, & Value in Health Care (Four credits)
Fall Semester (Year Two)
Mini 1: NURS 600: Transforming Health Care: Information Systems & Technology (Three credits)
Mini 2: NURS 611: Health Care Finance & Economics (Three credits)
Spring Semester (Year Two)
Mini 3: OL 502: Leadership & Organizational Behavior (Three credits)
Mini 4: NURS 604: Health Care Policy Analysis & Advocacy (Three credits)
Summer Semester (Year Two)
Mini 6: NURS 677: Integrative Nursing Capstone (Four credits)
An Integrative Nursing Approach to Leadership
Without a doubt, the nursing profession, while rewarding, can be stressful. With a Master of Science in Nursing, you will be prepared to help your organization directly address stress for nurses.
In the recent past, health care has focused on treating specific conditions or ailments rather than on the overall well-being of the people seeking care. Similarly, there has been a tendency to overlook the well-being of nurses caring for patients. This model can lead to poor outcomes and experiences for patients, as well as high levels of burnout and low levels of job satisfaction for nurses.
Through the Master of Science in Nursing program at Mercyhurst, you’ll be introduced to an emerging model of care that is person-centered and compassionate — a concept extended to working nurses and not just patients.
For instance, through the master’s in nursing leadership program, you’ll learn various techniques intended to enable self-care and resilience. Techniques such as these will help you to cultivate self-awareness and compassion for yourself and to allow you to extend the same kind of compassion and mercy to others.
Learning Outcomes
With the flexibility of Mercyhurst’s 100% online master’s in Nursing Leadership program, you can gain a competitive edge in the marketplace while maintaining the flexibility you need for your career, family, and other responsibilities. You can:
- Transform professional reflections, knowledge, skills, and attitudes into purposeful, advanced, and integrative nursing practice to improve the health, well-being, and resiliency of self and others
- Apply advanced communication and leadership skills to advocate for policies that improve the public health and profession of nursing using knowledge from nursing and related sciences, such as complexity science, systems theory, and Watson’s Human Caring Theory
- Integrate knowledge of emerging technologies, outcome data, and health care economics, with an emphasis on regulatory requirements and reimbursement mix, to inform fiscally responsible decision-making in the delivery of safe and effective care
- Employ translational scholarship when integrating evidence into clinical practice to improve health outcomes of diverse populations across the continuum of care
- Demonstrate critical decision-making when assessing high-priority needs in a highly complex healthcare system and cultivate unique partnerships and alliances to meet these needs in innovative, collaborative, ethical, and cost-effective ways
Special Tuition Rates for Mercyhurst Alumni
Mercyhurst has a celebrated history of educating skilled and compassionate nurses who provide high-quality patient care and embody the ideals of mercy and hospitality. In recognition of alumni of Mercyhurst College and Mercyhurst University who work as Registered Nurses, we are pleased to offer our online Nursing Leadership MSN program at a special alumni tuition rate of $425 per credit. A savings of nearly 30%, this special rate sets total cost for the 32-credit program, including registration costs, at $13,600.
During this course, the student will be introduced to a model of human caring that includes the arts and humanities, as well as science. Watson’s Theory of Human Caring provides a philosophical and ethical foundation for a nurse leader’s professional practice. An exploration of Complexity Science and Systems Theory, along with the principles of Integrative Nursing, will further the student’s ability to transform theory into safe, quality nursing practice that improves the health of the public and supports the profession of nursing.
In this course, the student studies various mind-body techniques such as biofeedback and mindfulness and applies them in a program of self-care to foster resilience. An exploration of an individual’s strengths, accomplishments, and what matters most in their life can lead to growth and flourishing. Students will cultivate self-awareness and compassion for oneself allowing for compassion and mercy to be extended to others.
Successful leadership is a process that takes time, experience, learning and a behavioral disposition toward working with others. This course examines the field of organizational behavior and leadership by studying theoretical models, practical examples, and experiential exercises.
This course introduces the student to the interconnected processes of creativity and innovation, emphasizing their essential roles in healthcare. Students will learn the creative process and traits that makeup creativity. In addition, students will be introduced to the concept of innovation and how organizations can foster and support creativity and innovation through culture. This course lays the groundwork for how creativity and innovation can be used for healthcare workers and organizations to address the needed change in healthcare in the U.S. By integrating these concepts, the course prepares students to generate novel solutions to healthcare challenges to help create change within healthcare organizations and enhance patient outcomes.
This course engages the student in the assessment of a healthcare organization’s culture of safety with the goal of decreasing and preventing inadvertent harm to patients as a result of care. The student will analyze and interpret patient safety data and present this evidence to support a specific patient safety initiative. A critical appraisal of the evidence and compliance with regulatory and accreditation requirements will be conducted during the design of a process improvement initiative. The student collaborates with nurse leaders and clinical experts, under guidance of faculty, on this assessment.
This course enables students to develop the leadership skills needed to effectively interface between the emerging field of data science technology and interdisciplinary clinical users. During this course, the student will learn to use meaningful data analytics to perform impact evaluations that improve patient outcomes. Advancing patient information security and confidentiality to promote ethical health care decisions will be a central focus.
This course examines economic and financial factors associated with the health care industry. Health care leaders will explore concepts vital to the management of financial resources within the health care industry, such as economics, budgeting, staffing, and various forms of analysis in the ever-evolving landscape of the health care system. Policies that influence the structure and financing of health care, practice, and health outcomes will be examined.
Graduate nursing students build upon previous learning of nursing research and evidence-based practice to develop mastery in critiquing and translating research evidence into practice. With an inquiring attitude toward their practice and care environment, students work with faculty to identify a research question, analyze research findings for evidence-based practice, and disseminate results to advance nursing knowledge.
This course prepares the integrative nurse leader to advance the agenda of the rapidly changing care environment by examination of health policy. Students will focus on policy process and develop and implement policy agendas. They will participate in collective decision-making, identifying roles and key stakeholders. The course will address how to identify gaps in policy knowledge. Nurse leaders will have an opportunity to engage in processes that influence population health. The course will prepare the integrative nurse leader to analyze the policy process and engage in politically competent care.
In the Integrative Nursing Leadership Capstone immersion, the student spends 60 hours working with a preceptor, under the guidance of faculty, as they further enhance their leadership skills. The student will implement their process improvement safety initiative, started in Quality, Safety & Value in Health Care, and prepare to sit for their Patient Safety Certification Exam. The student also completes, and submits for publication, a faculty-approved manuscript on their chosen patient safety topic.
Judy Stanley, DHSc., RN, CNE
Program Director, Graduate Nursing
Office: Motherhouse 691
Colleen Hordych
Assistant Director, Graduate Admissions
Meet the Faculty
Jan Haas
Dean, School of the Health Professions, Director, Physical Therapist Assistant programs, Assistant Professor
