As nurses expand further into leadership roles, the need for deeper administrative knowledge increases. This was made especially clear during the COVID-19 pandemic, says Lindsay Wolf, associate dean of nursing at Jacksonville University.
“There was this massive shift in the nursing profession,” she says. “People that weren’t necessarily prepared for leadership found themselves in those roles. … They were elevated to these roles and weren’t always educated formally in nursing leadership.”
Around that same time, nursing leaders often shifted their responsibilities from doing schedules and workflows to working more closely with hospital and health care teams on strategies and outcomes, she adds.
To help meet this growing need for expanded knowledge, Jacksonville University began to offer a Master of Science in Nursing degree with a concentration in Leadership in Healthcare Systems. It takes about 18 months to complete.
The program is offered online, but the university also has a special on-site arrangement for nurse leaders at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. “This program helps bridge the gap between bedside nurses and the individuals that are now progressing through to leadership roles so that they can have formal training,” Wolf says.