Description/Overview: Innovative, evidence-based nurse practitioners are promising healthcare leaders of today’s and tomorrow’s changing landscape of healthcare. Their preparation must center on a novel curriculum that includes innovative strategies to foster ownership of the DNP role as evidenced-based clinicians focused on improving healthcare outcomes and leaders in sustaining a culture of best practice. With evidence-based practice and innovation as the foundation for DNP curricula, faculty and learners can integrate the best available science and clinical evidence with expert clinician experiences and skills to actualize innovative decision-making with the patient, community or system. This symposium is designed to provide participants with an example of such a curriculum. Finally, the impact of the program will be presented, through student and graduate impressions and project outcomes.

Learner Objective #1: Discuss strategies for integrating evidence-based practice and innovation into a DNP program.

Learner Objective #2: Describe the impact of an evidence-based DNP-prepared clinical expert.