RN to BS in Nursing, BS

Program Mission, Goals and Outcomes

Program Mission

The New England Institute of Technology Nursing department seeks to prepare nurses at the associate, bachelor’s, and master’s levels to practice holistically in today’s complex and highly technological health care system. The mission of the programs is to prepare individuals as professionals whose care reflects altruistic, evidence-based, and ethical practice in the nursing profession.

Program Philosophy

This philosophy, the foundation of our curriculum, represents the faculty’s core beliefs regarding human beings, environment, health, nursing, higher education, teaching, and learning.

We believe that every person is a unique being worthy of respect and dignity. In our nursing framework, biological, and social components integrate seamlessly in individuals who use self-care to maintain their health status. We view the environment as the totality of the patient’s experience that includes the family, cultural context, society, and the global community. We recognize that the patient’s environment is a major influence on the patient’s health status.

Health is an individual experience characterized by wholeness where physical, psychological, interpersonal, spiritual, cultural, and social aspects of health are inseparable in the person. An individual’s response to stressors may change the ability of the patient to engage in self-care, resulting in deficits in meeting basic needs and requiring the need for nursing care. Individuals are moving toward maturation and actualization of their full potential. Humans have universal self-care requisites, and nurses need to be tireless advocates for patients’ pursuit of these universal needs within a caring and nonjudgmental environment.

Nursing is a scientific discipline with a distinct body of knowledge. Nursing practice is grounded in nursing science, natural sciences, social sciences, technology, and humanities. Nurses engage with clients in an active partnership and seek to understand the client’s lived experience of illness. Within this context, nurses provide holistic, evidence-based nursing care that respects and supports individual definitions of health. Nurses focus on quality healthcare and advocate for diverse individuals, families, communities, and systems. Nursing practice is grounded in these paradigmatic beliefs which provide the foundation for critical inquiry and knowledge development in nursing.

Every person who wishes to pursue a career in nursing should have the opportunity to do so. By advancing educational access for a diverse population of students, associate degree nursing education has contributed to a diverse nursing workforce to meet the healthcare needs of culturally and ethnically diverse populations. Likewise, every nurse should be encouraged to pursue, and have access to, seamless academic progression beyond the associate degree into baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral programs. The Department of Nursing at New England Tech joins with other nursing organizations in Rhode Island and throughout the nation, to advance opportunities for academic progression within nursing. We stand ready to work together to ensure that nurses have the support they need to further their education.

Higher education for nursing practice is grounded in a sound theoretical and empirical knowledge base. The educational program intends to address the needs of diverse learners by encouraging active participation in the learning process. Nursing education seeks to empower students as future nurses while instilling an enthusiasm for lifelong critical inquiry, learning, and professional growth.

The faculty is committed to creating supportive environments that foster adult learning. Students have multiple opportunities to develop the core competencies that characterize a well-educated nurse. Students work closely with professors who care about them and provide opportunities for student learning and development as confident lifelong learners. The faculty uses a variety of evidence-based teaching methods that address adult students’ learning needs. Learners assume responsibility for their learning and are active participants in the learning process.

Program Outcomes

1. Synthesize theoretical and empirical nursing knowledge and related knowledge from the arts, sciences, and technology essential for professional practice.
2. Participate in quality improvement processes to provide high-quality, safe nursing care in a variety of settings.
3. Engage in a systematic process of critical inquiry to make evidence-based practice decisions that improve the nursing care of individuals, families, groups, and communities.
4. Use information technology and patient data for ethical, clinical decision-making.
5. Advocate for clients and support their right to safe, compassionate, ethical, and holistic nursing care.
6. Communicate respectfully and work collaboratively with patients, intra-, and inter-professional teams to deliver safe, patient-centered care that improves health outcomes.
7. Provide professional nursing care to individuals and populations that include health promotion and maintenance, illness care, end-of-life care, and rehabilitation.
8. Demonstrate a commitment to professionalism that embraces the core values of excellence, caring, ethical practice, civility, accountability, and life-long learning.
9. Employ current theories and principles of leadership to create a caring healthcare environment, deliver quality care, and improve healthcare outcomes.

Courses Offered

For the latest listing of courses offered, please review our University Catalog here.