The Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (AGACNP) program prepares students to manage adult patients with unstable chronic, acute, and critical conditions. Graduates provide a spectrum of care ranging from disease prevention to acute and critical care management. The AGACNP scope of practice includes stabilizing patients, treating disease, preventing complications, restoring maximum health, and providing palliative and end of life care.

AGACNP students will complete courses in assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of adults and older adults. Students will be provided a strong background in pharmacology, diagnostic reasoning, and clinical decision making. Coursework focuses on the adult and geriatric populations. The program emphasizes health promotion in vulnerable adult and older adult populations, and the development of the AGACNP role.

Students may enroll in the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program. The AGACNP DNP program is a full time three year track. It includes a combination of advanced practice core, AGACNP specialty courses, and DNP core courses. The DNP degree prepares students for entry into practice as an AG ACNP and for advanced clinical, scholarship, and leadership roles. This program offers a practice focused curriculum that will support the career trajectory for those pursuing clinical practice and leadership.

Supervised clinical experiences will focus on the differing needs of complex chronic and high acuity patients across the entire adult age spectrum. Students will study alongside academic and affiliate faculty with expertise in a comprehensive breadth of acute care subspecialties. Students will be paired with mentors in a range of settings as they develop skills in acute care management, inter and intra-professional collaboration, leadership, quality improvement, evidence-based research, and health policy. Faculty will assist with finding clinical preceptors that best meets each student’s learning interests and needs. Clinical sites may include a variety of acute care and critical care settings including emergency departments, acute specialty services, and intensive care units.

The OHSU curriculum is based on the national competencies of the American Association Colleges of Nursing (AACN). The program is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). Portions of the AGACNP program can be completed online, but all clinical related courses are in a face-to-face format.

Graduates from the AGACNP program are eligible for licensure as an AGACNP by the Oregon State Board of Nursing and may apply for national certification.

At the completion of the OHSU School of Nursing AGACNP Program, the graduate will demonstrate not only general DNP competencies, but also the following AGACNP student learning outcomes:

1. Apply advanced knowledge in the science of a specialty area of advanced nursing practice. Use emerging information and health technologies to access current research and health care data to improve patient care.
2. Make sound, culturally appropriate and ethically grounded clinical judgments based on critical analysis of best available evidence.
3. Demonstrate safe care of adults, including the frail elderly with regard to issues of health promotion as well as unstable chronic, complex acute and critical conditions.
4. Provide individualized, culturally sensitive management using quality improvement strategies where applicable.
5. Use effective communications skills and technologies to provide collaborative care.
6. Synthesize and translate relevant, current and scientific knowledge and evidence-based research finding into practice.