An approach to clinical data management for the doctor of nursing practice curriculum

Strong data management skills are essential to doctor of nursing practice (DNP) education and necessary for DNP practice. Completion of the DNP scholarly project requires application of these skills to understand and address a complex practice, process, or systems problem; develop, implement, and monitor an innovative evidence-based intervention to address that problem; and evaluate the outcomes. The purposes of this paper were to describe the demand and context for clinical data management (CDM) within the DNP curriculum; provide an overview of CDM content; describe the process for content delivery; propose a set of course objectives; and describe initial successes and challenges. A two-pronged approach of consultation and a CDM course were developed. Students who participated in this approach were more likely to create and implement an evaluation plan; apply techniques for data cleansing and manipulation; apply concepts of sample size determination using power analysis; use exploratory data analysis techniques to understand population attributes and sampling bias; apply techniques to adjust for bias; apply statistical significance testing; and present project results in a meaningful way. On the basis of this evaluation, CDM has evolved from an elective to a required course integrated in a thread that crosses the entire curriculum.