You have been working on both components of your capstone project since the beginning of the course: the first component (your Change Proposal) in your small group collaborations and rough drafts, and the second component (your Philosophy of Nursing Statement) in your reflection journals. This week, you will integrate all of the feedback and guidance on both pieces and compile them both into one final capstone project document with appropriate flow and headings.
RUBRIC-Your capstone assessment will consist of two components. The first component consists of a change proposal that comprehensively addresses a nursing- related
concerneither in an organization where you work or have worked, or more broadly at the local, state, or national level. Your instructor should approve
your change proposal topic early in the course. Because change does not happen in isolation and often has far-reaching impacts, your proposal will need to
incorporate multiple aspects of health practice in suggesting strategies to improve the target populations health. You will need to address patient and nurse
safety; appropriate use of technology; health literacy; policy, regulatory, and financial constraints; and strategies for building support for proposed changes.
In addition to the change proposal, you will also create a brief statement that expresses your philosophy of nursing practice. To do this, you will reflect on what
you have learned, relevant theories of nursing practice, and the importance of professional integrity, ethics, and self-reflection in caring for patients. Your goal is
to articulate how your philosophy of nursing has evolved as a result of the experiences and knowledge you gained in the RN-BSN program.
Change Proposal
In first portion of your capstone, you will create a comprehensive change proposal designed to promote health and to prevent disease in your selected health
care environment (current employer, previous employer, or within the broader nursing community, subject to instructor approval). This artifact will showcase
your abilities as a nursing professional capable of leading change in a complex healthcare environment.
As a practicing RN-BSN, you will be expected to bring clinical expertise to your work and take on a leadership role in continually improving patient care. Your
change proposal should be geared toward convincing an audience of administrative decision-makers that change is needed and that your plan is
desirable and viable. It should clearly and concisely lay out the problem you are seeking to address and suggest specific evidence-based changes, including a plan
for implementing and evaluating those changes. You should also specify and approximate a timeframe for carrying out your plan and the resources you will
need. (Note: You do not need to actually implement the change and evaluate it, just create a plan for how you would do so.)
Remember that in order for you to gain support for your proposal, it will need to be succinct, clear, and well-supported throughout by credible research and
evidence.
Your proposal should contain the following sections:
I. Introduction
A. Identify a clinical or nonclinical problem that is relevant to nurses in your workplace or former workplace or is a recognized issue in the local,
state, or national nursing community from which you can act as a change agent and propose a change.
B. Explain why you selected the issue, identifying the significance to nursing practice and the expected outcomes from the change.
II. Justification of Need
A. Explain the current situation of the targeted organization for your proposed change.
B. Develop arguments with evidence that support this need for change.
III. Pre-Implementation Plan
A. Identify a specific change theory that will assist you with planning stages of your change proposal
B. Identify activities needed prior to implementing your change, making theory-to-practice connections with each key element and impact of
change to the element
C. Discuss a plan for activities needed to leverage this element to promote change and identify the stakeholders that may be involved in these
activities. The activities you propose must cover multiple aspects of health practice surrounding the problem, including but not limited to:
a. Patient and Nurse Safety
b. Information Management Systems
c. Health Literacy
d. Administrative Policies
e. Ethical Considerations (i.e.; equity of access and treatment, etc.)
IV. Implementation Plan
A. Assess the factors that are likely to affect the implementation of your recommended activities
B. Identify evidence-based rationales to propose how you will address them, incorporating your identified change theory. Your plan should
encompass the following with evidence to support your rationale:
a. Technological challenges
b. Institutional structures
c. Strategies for building buy-in among different stakeholders, including nurses
d. Financial trends and anticipation of the availability of human resource and project funding
e. Hospital or governmental policy constraints
f. Regulatory requirements
g. Patient diversity
V. Evaluation plan:
A. Propose steps for evaluating your suggested changes based on your change theory and evidence on existing best practices. Include the indicators
that you will use to measure success, both in implementing the change itself and in ensuring quality outcomes for diverse patients.
B. Identify appropriate benchmarks from which to measure the effectiveness of the change.
C. Discuss the processes you will use for gathering feedback from relevant stakeholdersincluding nurses, patients, and their familieson what is
and is not working in order to support continuous improvement.
VI. Time and resource allocation:
A. Give an approximate timeframe for the different stages and activities in your proposal
B. Estimate the human and other resources that will be needed to carry out your proposal. You do not need to include specific dollar amounts, but you
should anticipate what each activity requires in terms of resources in general terms. For example, you might need a certain number of full- or part-time
staff or the services of a contracted firm, specific software, hospital supplies, laptops, publicity materials, and so forth. You may find it useful to use an
Excel spreadsheet or other table for presenting this information.
VII. Conclusion
A. Summarize the proposed change, its significance, and expected outcomes as a result of implementing the proposed change.
Change Proposal Timeline:
Draft Deliverable Module Due Grading
1 Rough draft of Introduction section One Draft graded; receive feedback from
instructor and peers
2 Rough draft of Justification of Need and
Pre-Implementation plus revisions from
Module One
Two Draft graded; receive feedback from
instructor and peers
3 Rough draft of implementation plan plus
revisions from previous weeks
Three Draft graded; receive feedback from
instructor and peers
4 Rough draft of evaluation plan plus
revisions from previous weeks
Four Draft graded; receive feedback from
instructor and peers
5 Rough draft of time and resource
allocation plan plus revisions from
previous weeks
Five Draft graded; receive feedback from
instructor and peers for final submission in
Module Seven
Philosophy of Nursing Statement
For the second and final component of your capstone, you will write a 35-page statement in which you construct your own philosophy of nursing practice. This
philosophy should include, but is not limited to, a discussion of the theoretical foundations and assumptions that are foundational to your practice, as well as
how your coursework and capstone project impacted your own philosophy of nursing and contributed to your personal and professional transformation. This
reflection is a professional, yet personal, statement of why you think being a nurse is important and the principles that guide your practice. It is also a valuable
tool for sharing the knowledge, skills, and abilities that you have gained from the RN-BSN program and your own nursing values with potential employers or
graduate school admissions officers.
Your philosophy of nursing statement should include the following:
1. Introduction: Open your statement with a few sentences about the importance of a philosophy of nursing practice. How does such a philosophy shape
your identity and role as a nurse?
2. Assumptions: Discuss your assumptions about patients, health, environment, and nursing and the relationships among these variables. How does your
nursing philosophy guide your interaction with patients, their families, and other healthcare professionals? How do professional integrity, equity, ethics,
and the potential for bias factor into your assumptions?
3. Theoretical Foundation(s): Highlight the theoretical foundations that are important in your philosophy of nursing practice. You may have one or several.
How do these foundations translate into your practice?
4. Experiences: Evaluate how new experiences and knowledge shape your nursing philosophy. Specifically, you should address how your RN-BSN
coursework, this capstone, and other experiences have influenced how you view your nursing practice. What role does self-reflection play in personal
and professional transformation? How do activities like the change proposal help you develop as a lifelong learner and act as an agent of change in
improving both personal and professional practice? In addition, you may want to discuss challenges that you have faced and what you would change or
do differently in addressing those challenges, since the ability to effectively and creatively solve problems is a highly valued job skill.
5. Conclusion: Reflect on how your nursing philosophy and experiences at SNHU relate to your plans for further education and how this will impact your
future nursing practice.
Philosophy of Nursing Timeline:
To help you develop your philosophy of nursing, you will collaborate with your instructor through a series of reflection journals in which you will reflect on your
learning and create drafts related to the sections of philosophy outlines above.
Draft Deliverable Module Due Grading
1 Introduction and Assumptions rough
draft
One Graded separately; Reflection Journal Rubric
2 Theoretical Foundation(s) and
Experiences rough draft
Three Graded separately; Reflection Journal Rubric
3 Revised draft of previous sections and
Conclusion rough draft
Six Graded separately; Reflection Journal Rubric
Final Project Rubric
This rubric will be applied to both the Change Proposal and the Philosophy of Nursing assignments as a whole, and neither component will be assessed on its own.
The Possible Indicators of Success are examples for you and the instructor of the types of concepts to look for to demonstrate proficiency. They are neither
exhaustive nor proscriptive and should be used as guides for illustrating how your capstone embodies the outcome. All outcomes are weighted equally.
Guidelines for Submission: Your change proposal should include a title page and table of contents and should conform to the latest APA writing conventions and
citations. It should be approximately 1015 pages, not including the reference list or optional appendices, double-spaced, and in 12-point Times New Roman font.
Your references must include at least 3 peer-reviewed nursing sources. You may include optional illustrations, photographs, graphs and charts, and other nontextual materials as needed to support your proposal.
Your nursing philosophy should be approximately 35 pages, double-spaced, and in 12-point Times New Roman font. You will submit both components in one
document.
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