Accelerated Online Bachelor’s in Nursing (RN to BSN)

Essential Skills & Insights

Coursework in this online RN to BSN program is designed to elevate your clinical expertise while preparing you for leadership and specialized roles in modern healthcare. You’ll expand your knowledge of evidence-based practice, patient-centered care, and health policy while strengthening collaboration across interdisciplinary teams.

• Evidence-Based Nursing Practice: Apply proven research and best practices to improve patient outcomes and deliver high-quality care.
• Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Build advanced interprofessional communication and teamwork skills to work effectively with diverse healthcare professionals.
• Healthcare Economics & Policy: Develop greater awareness of healthcare policy processes and impacts and the importance of advocacy for patient safety and quality outcomes.
• Patient-Centered Practice: Enhance your ability to lead and influence the delivery of compassionate, personalized care for patients, families, and communities.

AI-Powered Learning, Real-World Impact

Our accelerated online programs integrate opportunities to engage with Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a powerful tool for learning and career preparation. Students apply AI in ways that build authentic skills and mirror how businesses are leveraging it across industries. We emphasize ethical and responsible use, ensuring that students develop the judgment to apply AI appropriately. This approach helps graduates enter the workforce with both technical knowledge and a clear understanding of AI’s role in their discipline.

Careers in Nursing

Registered nurses with a BSN are in high demand with expanded opportunities for leadership, specialization, and advanced practice preparation. Earning your BSN not only increases earning potential but also positions you for roles that shape the future of patient care.

• Registered Nurse (BSN-prepared) — Median salary: $86,070
  Deliver advanced, evidence-based care while qualifying for leadership roles and specialized units such as critical care, pediatrics, or oncology.
• Nurse Manager — Median salary: $104,830
  Oversee nursing staff, manage budgets, and ensure high standards of care in hospitals or healthcare facilities. Nurse managers serve as the bridge between frontline staff and executive leadership.
• Clinical Nurse Educator — Median salary: $85,000
  Train and mentor new nurses, implement best practices, and guide professional development within healthcare organizations.

Salary figures reflect U.S. national medians from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2024).

Admissions Requirements

For admission to your Accelerated Online RN-BSN Completion degree program, you will need to satisfy the following requirements:

• Completion of an associate degree program, a hospital diploma program at a regionally accredited institution, or a state board of nursing-approved program.
• Active unencumbered nursing licensed to be verified upon enrollment into the program.
  • Applicants without a current registered nurse license may enroll in Lindenwood University to complete the required general education and elective courses.
  • Applicants must have completed the NCLEX-RN before beginning program coursework and must maintain licensure throughout the program.
• Students are required to comply with clinical site background clearance and vaccination requirements.

Complete your online application and submit the following documents:

1. Complete the Graduate Admissions Online Application by visiting my.lindenwood.edu/register
2. Submit Official Transcripts:
   If you have completed any college coursework, request official transcripts from those institutions as well.
   
   Request your official transcript to be sent directly to Lindenwood University Accelerated Online via one of the methods below:
   • Electronically to: [email protected]
   • By Mail to:
     Office of Admissions
     Lindenwood University Accelerated Online
     8205 S Priest Dr #11480
     Tempe, AZ 85284
   • By Fax to: 480-393-1826

Curriculum Overview

The Bachelor’s in Nursing RN to BSN accelerated online completion program at Lindenwood University offers a comprehensive curriculum designed to advance the skills and knowledge of registered nurses. With the flexibility of online coursework, you will advance your professional nursing leadership skills in evidence-based practice, leadership, quality and patient safety, healthcare policy and finance, and healthcare informatics: Our RN to BNS program will prepare you to pursue expanded roles in nursing practice and leadership positions in various healthcare settings.

Nursing, BS (RN-BSN Completion Track) 

LUAO values your previous nursing education and awards you 32 credit hours for your active unencumbered nursing license and completion of your prior associate or diploma nursing program. The RN-BSN Completion track requires completion of 10 nursing courses and completion of all general education and university requirements for a Bachelors of Science degree (120 credits). Our LUAO are eager to with you to develop a personalized degree plan to support your education goals.

Program requirements:

• 32 credits RN program coursework
• 32 credits awarded for unencumbered RN license
• Completion of any needed general education course work and electives to ensure 120 total credits.

Major Coursework – 32 Credit Hours

Professional Identity and Practice: Transitioning to Nursing Leadership

This course introduces students to professional nursing and explores the identity, values, philosophy, standards, and challenges that define professional nursing practice. Students are exposed to the history of and trends in professional nursing; the various nursing roles, methods, and philosophical basis for knowledge and skills acquisition; the role of critical thinking and application of evidence-based principles to the nursing process; beginning development of professional solid communication skills; information literacy; and the development and delivery of professional nursing care.

Comprehensive Health Assessment for the Registered Nurse

Health assessment and physical examination integrate theoretical knowledge and interpersonal skills to serve as the foundation of the nursing process. The course prepares baccalaureate nursing students to utilize the principles of comprehensive health assessment, physical examination, and wellness promotion in the holistic patient care of individuals and families throughout the developmental stages of the life span. Students will apply and practice assessment skills in communication, relationship building, interviewing, gathering of subjective and objective patient data, and documentation. The course applies a lifespan approach to diverse individuals’ physical health assessment concepts and principles. Integration of examination skills is explored within the dimensions of the pathophysiological changes occurring during alterations in health. Considerations for assessment include growth and development, psychological, sociocultural, and spiritual health of individuals.

Research, Statistics, and Scholarship in Professional Health Practice

This course introduces the baccalaureate student nurse to the nursing research process, evidence-based practice methodology, and standard statistical practices and applications for health sciences. Students will learn to apply evidence-based practice methodology and utilize nursing research in the clinical setting to improve patient outcomes. The application of nursing science to clinical reasoning, clinical judgment, and interprofessional research collaboration will be addressed. The ethical conduct of research and scholarship will be discussed. The baccalaureate nurse’s contributions to research and evidence-based practice in improving patient care and outcomes will be studied.

Informatics in Professional Nursing Practice

This course introduces health informatics, including the interdisciplinary study of IT-based innovations’ design, development, adoption, and application in healthcare services delivery, management, and planning. Students learn foundational concepts of health informatics, including theoretical foundations of informatics; information systems in health care delivery; participatory health care and quality; usability and standards in health informatics; governance and organizational structures for health informatics; and future directions for the science and profession.

Healthcare Economics and Policy

This course explores the organization, management, financing, and reimbursement of healthcare services within complex, rapidly changing healthcare delivery systems. Important legal, ethical, political, and advocacy principles and their impact on health care, especially for vulnerable populations, are emphasized, focusing on equity, access, affordability, and social justice. Ethical decision-making and conflict-resolution skills are developed. A review of regulatory agency policies that impact nursing practice, scope, and roles is included in the course.

Transforming Healthcare Through Organizational Systems, Quality, and Safety

This course offers the student an understanding of healthcare quality improvement, including methods and tools to increase patient safety, improve healthcare outcomes and reduce risk in the healthcare setting. It focuses on applying expert knowledge and management expertise to the multiple challenges managers face in healthcare organizations. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of work teams in quality improvement and risk reduction, including understanding the critical success factors for effective team performance. Additional reading and course discussions include assessing risk in complex healthcare organizations and assessing the value of different management techniques to monitor, anticipate, reduce, and eliminate disruptive and dangerous risks. The fundamental objective of this course is for the student to apply quality and risk management principles in diverse healthcare environments to improve patient safety and clinical outcomes.

Interprofessional Collaboration and Leadership for Registered Nurse

This course prepares the professional nurse to coordinate care, lead teams, and demonstrate high-level decision-making within diverse healthcare settings. Emphasis is placed on leadership and management theory and concepts, delegation and supervision of licensed and non-licensed assistive personnel, and a systems approach focusing on the quality and safety of client care. The course will discuss leadership models, behavior, and strategic planning at various organizational levels. Students will also learn concepts of organizational structure, healthcare delivery systems, change management, budgeting and resource allocation, and collaboration with multidisciplinary teams. A mentored leadership and management clinical experience will allow students to apply leadership theories and principles discussed during the course.

Healthcare Promotion and Practice in Public Health and Communities

This course provides a conceptual foundation for public and community health nursing in which the community is the client’s primary intervention focus. Students learn about delivering care to populations and aggregates using the core public health functions framework of assessment, policy development, and assurance. The changing needs of an increasingly culturally diverse population and the environmental, economic, political, and legal influences impacting the health of groups and communities are examined. Students integrate and apply concepts of epidemiology, health policy, strategies to facilitate health promotion and prevention, and evidence-based practice in conducting a community assessment and planning care for a population or aggregate. Learning activities focus on the community and provide opportunities for students to theoretically apply epidemiology, public health science, and professional nursing at the population and aggregate level.

Advancing the Nursing Profession: Expanded Practices and Roles

This course prepares the professional nurse to extend the vision for the nursing profession into the future and chart a path for the nursing profession to help the nation create a culture of health, reduce health disparities, and improve the health and well-being of the U.S. population in the 21st century. Students consider emerging evidence related to the COVID-19 global pandemic and include recommendations regarding the role of nurses in responding to the crisis created by the pandemic. Students examine the lessons learned from past and current nursing practices, roles, responsibilities, and the current state of science and technology to inform their assessment of the nursing profession’s capacity to meet the anticipated health and social care demands in the coming decades. In examining current and future challenges, students consider the dramatically transformed context of professional nursing and the rapidly deployed changes in clinical care, nurse education, nursing leadership, and nursing-community partnerships due to the pandemic and the implications and considerations for future professional nursing practice. In examining the future decades of nursing, students draw from domestic and global examples of evidence-based models of care that address social determinants of health and help build and sustain a culture of health.

BSN Capstone for the Registered Nurse

This course is designed for professional nursing students to systematically apply and synthesize skills and knowledge from their baccalaureate coursework to the healthcare practice setting through a mentored leadership and management clinical experience. Students develop and plan for the implementation and evaluation of a project to lead a healthcare system change initiative aimed at improving wellness outcomes and nursing practice in the healthcare environment. The course and project will emphasize professional nursing concepts such as assessment, evidence-based practice, safety and quality, health policy, community health, and leadership in transitioning to professional nursing practice in a transforming healthcare environment. In addition, each student will complete a portfolio outlining professional nursing growth throughout the program and include identifying goals for continued professional development and lifelong learning.

Prerequisite: All general education and nursing prerequisites (or course equivalents) and all 30000- and 40000-level nursing courses.

Program Length Details

Lindenwood University’s (LU) Accelerated Online programs offer you choice and flexibility to support your education journey. Time to complete a bachelor’s degree can vary based on course load, transfer credits, and individual pacing. You will tailor a course schedule that keeps you in the driver’s seat.

• Transfer Credit: LU allows 90 transfer credits toward a bachelor’s degree and students can complete their degree in as few as 30 credits.
• Accelerated Courses: LU’s accelerated online programs offer 10 5-week terms per year. By enrolling in two courses per term, you can potentially complete your bachelor’s degree in two years.
• Frequent Start Dates: LU offers multiple start dates throughout the year so you can begin your studies when you are ready allowing you to graduate sooner.
• Personalized Degree Plan: LU academic advisors will work with you to tailor your degree plan to support your education goals while balancing your personal and professional responsibilities.