MSN: Clinical Nurse Leader Online Program
Eligible to Sit for CNL Exam
Best Online Graduate Nursing Program1
Evidence-Based Practice Coursework
Flexible Online Learning
Close-to-Home Clinicals
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Complete the form to learn more about this program.
- Duration 2 years
- Cost per Credit $695
- Credit Hours 39
Program Benefits
- Eligible to become CNL certified
- Attend class when and where it’s convenient
- No BSN requirement for admission
- 6 convenient start dates
Elevate Your Career as a Nurse Leader
Lead a team with SHU’s MSN –Clinical Nurse Leader specialization. You’ve mastered patient care and working as part of a team. Advance as a leader who can inform a team about evidence-based practices, tools and processes to improve patient outcomes. Reshape policy, reduce costs and identify solutions to problems within your healthcare system after a deep immersion of quality care research within the curriculum.
This unique RN-MSN degree offers five core and eight specialized courses. Complete your degree in two to six years, at your own pace, and then be eligible to sit for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing CNL Certification Exam.
CNL Career Outlook: Roles Across Health Care Settings
When you pursue a CNL program online, you’ll prepare to build a career ensuring patients receive safe, high-quality care with the newest health care technologies and techniques.
In 2021, 46 percent of CNLs surveyed were employed at Acute Care Inpatient Facilities. Other top employers included Healthcare Facilities (13 percent), Outpatient Clinics or Surgery Centers (6 percent), Schools of Nursing (9 percent) and Long-Term Care Facilities (2 percent).2
Upon completing your CNL program and certification, you can qualify for a variety of roles in addition to Clinical Nurse Leader, including Nurse Administrator, Nurse Educator, Risk Management, Quality Care Coordinator, Patient Navigator, CNL Academic Faculty, Community Health, and other roles utilized in the facility in which you choose to work.
Clinical Nurse Leader:
$ 101,431 /YEAR3
As a Clinical Nurse Leader, your responsibilities would include leading collaborative patient care, as well as mentoring other nurses, educating patients and their families, and analyzing data and assessing patient risks and outcomes. This role and estimated CNL salary requires the CNL certification from the AACN.
Careers and SalariesCurriculum: Immerse Yourself in Clinical Leadership
The clinical nurse leader program’s online curriculum offers in-depth exploration of nursing leadership. Through nine courses, comprising 27 specialization credit hours, you will gain skills in pharmacology, advanced pathophysiology, communications, information management and more.
Students admitted after January 1, 2024, to the CNL program will have 420 hours of role immersion to ensure you meet the requirements to sit for the AACN’s CNL Certification Exam.
Course Spotlight: NU 550 – Family and Community Context for Health Care
Gain a better understanding of family, primary care and community theories in the context of advanced practice nursing and clinical leadership roles.
Preview CoursesCourse Spotlight: NU 611 – Care Management & Resources Across the Continuum
Examine the Clinical Nurse Leader’s (CNL’s) responsibility for the management of healthcare across the lifespan and continuum of care while remaining cognizant of the global environment in which healthcare is provided.
Graduate Student Learning Outcomes
At the end of the program, the student will be able to:
- Translate into action knowledge from the philosophical and theoretical traditions of nursing science and other disciplinary perspectives to facilitate the ethical integration of evidence-based practice to advance nursing scholarship.
- Lead collaboratively within the interprofessional team to develop and evaluate plans of care with evidence-based, person-centered care principles promoting quality and safety outcomes.
- Collaborate with strategic partners to implement health policy while advocating for equitable and sustainable population health care.
- Integrate complex systems-based practice to develop innovative and evidence supported equitable solutions to improve health outcomes across the lifespan of diverse populations.
- Apply best practices of informatics and communication technologies in diverse care settings to collect, analyze, and synthesize data to promote quality and safe health care outcomes.
- Demonstrate professional behaviors reflecting current regulations, policies, and practice integrating professional concepts including ethics, compassion, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Model leadership within the nursing profession that embraces self-care, a spirit of inquiry, advocacy, change, mentorship, and service to others.
More Options for Your MSN
Frequently Asked Questions
If you have a question we don’t cover here, request more information or call 877-791-7181.
You can take as long as six years to complete the program.
- Current, unencumbered RN license
- Bachelor’s degree in any field with a 3.0 GPA
- Official transcripts of all prior nursing and academic work
- Résumé
- Statement of professional goals: Why do you wish to pursue the MSN at SHU? Describe a significant accomplishment in your career or as a student that has prepared you to pursue graduate studies in nursing. In addition, please describe 2–3 professional goals.
- Two letters of recommendation (at least one from a direct supervisor): Must be from an employer, professor or a member of the medical/nursing profession and be written within the last two years.
- Proof of malpractice insurance ($1,000,000/$3,000,000)
- Prerequisite course in statistics
Yes, you’ll earn your degree with one of the following specializations:
- The Nursing Education specialization requires 180 clinical hours.
- The Nursing Management and Executive Leadership specialization requires 120 clinical hours.
- As of Jan. 1, 2024, Clinical Nurse Leader specialization requires 420 clinical hours.
Sources:
- Best Online Master’s in Nursing Programs. U.S. News and World Report. Retrieved July 23, 2021, from https://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/sacred-heart-university-ONUR0289/nursing.
- Commission on Nurse Certification (2021). Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) Commission on Nurse Certification (CNC). Retrieved July 29, 2022, from https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/42/CNL/CNLStats.pdf.
- Ziprecruiter.com (2022 November). Clinical Nurse Leader Salary. Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Clinical-Nurse-Leader-Salary-in-Chicago,IL#:~:text=As%20of%20Oct%2027%2C%202022,Chicago%20is%20%2495%2C739%20a%20year.