NSG 600 Nursing Informatics: Wilkes University DNP Course Guide

What Is NSG 600 Nursing Informatics?

NSG 600 asks DNP students to use information systems as working tools, not just study them conceptually. The course description centers on three applied skills: using information systems to analyze patient data, using them to conduct research, and using them to evaluate project outcomes. That applied framing runs through the whole course, and it’s worth keeping in mind, since it’s the difference between an NSG 600 submission that describes a technology and one that actually analyzes what the technology does.

Specifically, the course includes applications in:

• Computer-based patient records — how electronic documentation functions within clinical and administrative workflows
• Database management systems — how healthcare data is structured, stored, and retrieved
• E-health — technology-enabled care delivery and health information exchange
• Distance education — technology’s role in clinical and academic learning
• Research — using informatics tools and data to support evidence-based practice

The course also examines the legal and ethical issues associated with computer use in healthcare settings, a thread that shows up across multiple weekly modules rather than being confined to a single unit.

What You Learn in NSG 600: The Nine Course Outcomes

By the end of NSG 600, you’re expected to demonstrate nine specific outcomes. Here’s what each one actually asks of you, in practical terms.

1. Apply nursing informatics across research, clinical practice, management, population health, and education. You’re expected to show that informatics isn’t confined to one setting, the same data and systems thinking applies whether you’re evaluating a clinical workflow, a research project, or a population health initiative.

2. Analyze the ethical and legal issues of healthcare informatics. This goes beyond naming a concern like “data privacy.” You’re expected to analyze how legal and ethical issues actually play out in informatics decisions, tied to health policy.

3. Interpret data to make recommendations that improve healthcare delivery, including social determinants of health. The emphasis is on interpretation and recommendation, not just data description, connected to evidence-based practice.

4. Understand the role of technology innovations, including artificial intelligence, in clinical practice and policy making. AI is explicitly named as part of this outcome, tied to both clinical application and the policy decisions that govern how technology gets adopted.

5. Apply the healthcare technology lifecycle, from planning through post-implementation, and explain the DNP’s role in it. This is the outcome most directly connected to systems development and change leadership, understanding technology adoption as a full lifecycle, not a single rollout event.

6. Describe the role of data, collection, analysis, security, and confidentiality, in the quality improvement process. Data governance and QI are treated as connected, not separate topics.

7. Demonstrate the role of policies guiding technology to address social determinants of health in underserved communities. This outcome ties technology policy directly to equity and access.

8. Design and implement informatics innovations that address weaknesses in practice, delivery, or system efficiency. This is an applied, design-oriented outcome, identifying a real gap and proposing an informatics-based fix.

9. Demonstrate principles of prompted engineering to obtain data. This is the course’s explicit AI-literacy outcome, understanding how prompt structure affects the data or output you get from an AI tool, evaluated within the university’s stated AI policy for coursework (more on that below).

NSG 600 Weekly Topics

Here’s the module-by-module sequence, drawn directly from the current syllabus.

If you’re working full time, this table is worth bookmarking on its own. Knowing which week carries a major deliverable (4, 7–8, 10–11) versus a discussion-only week lets you allocate your limited study hours before the module opens, not after.

[NSG 600 Week 1–2 Guide: Foundations and SWOT Analysis] · [NSG 600 Prompted Engineering Exercise Guide] · [NSG 600 SDLC and White Paper Guide] · [NSG 600 Human-Technology Interface Guide] · [NSG 600 SAFER Guide] · [NSG 600 Health Literacy and AI Guide] · [NSG 600 Genomics and Emerging Technology Guide] · [NSG 600 Knowledge Worker Guide]

NSG 600 Assignments and Discussions

Beyond weekly discussions, NSG 600 has four major deliverables, per the current grading structure:

White Paper — due Module 4, worth 30% of the course grade. This is the course’s central written analysis, connected to the SDLC module and course outcomes on data-driven change (COs 3, 5, 6). [Read the complete NSG 600 White Paper Guide]

Peer Review Process — conducted in Module 6, via video discussion of your White Paper. The syllabus does not list a separate percentage weight for this component; confirm current grading details in your D2L rubric. [Read the NSG 600 White Paper Peer Review Guide]

Evaluation of an Emerging Technology — due Module 11, worth 30% of the course grade, connected to course outcomes on technology application, data interpretation, and informatics innovation (COs 1, 3, 4, 7, 8). [Read the NSG 600 Emerging Technology Evaluation Guide]

Online Genomics Module — due Module 11, worth 10% of the course grade, tied to COs 1, 2, and 3. [Read the NSG 600 Genomics Module Guide]

Weekly Discussions — worth 30% of the course grade collectively, running every module and tied broadly across the course outcomes.

For any assignment where the syllabus doesn’t spell out full instructions, the syllabus itself directs you to the assignment descriptions and rubrics posted in your D2L course shell, and that’s the authoritative source to confirm details against, not this guide or any other outside page.

Key Nursing Informatics Concepts in NSG 600

A fast reference for the vocabulary this course expects you to move between comfortably.

• Nursing informatics — the intersection of nursing science, information science, and computer science, applied to clinical data and decision-making
• Health information systems — the platforms that store, move, and structure clinical and administrative data
• Patient data — the raw material every downstream analysis, research question, and QI project in this course depends on
• Data analysis — turning raw patient or system data into an interpretable finding
• Artificial intelligence — covered specifically in Module 3 and referenced in course outcomes 4 and 9, both as a clinical tool and a policy consideration
• Prompted engineering — how the structure of a prompt shapes the data or output an AI tool returns; this course’s explicit AI-literacy skill
• Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) — the staged process (planning through post-implementation) that governs how new technology gets adopted in a healthcare organization
• Human-technology interface and workflow — how well a system fits into the actual clinical workflow it’s meant to support
• Patient safety — a throughline connecting technology, QI, and the SAFER Guide module
• Quality improvement (QI) — using data to identify and close performance gaps
• SAFER Guide — an ONC framework for evaluating EHR safety and optimization, covered in Modules 7–8
• Health literacy — patients’ capacity to find, understand, and use health information, examined here alongside AI’s role in supporting or complicating it
• eLearning — technology-enabled education, covered as its own module topic
• Genomics — covered via a dedicated online module connecting genomic data to informatics practice
• Knowledge worker — the course’s closing concept, professionals (including DNP-prepared nurses) who create value primarily by working with information rather than physical output
• Data security and confidentiality — a required consideration anywhere patient data is collected, stored, or analyzed
• Health policy and social determinants of health — recurring threads connecting technology access and design to equity in underserved communities

NSG 600 and the DNP Role

The course outcomes consistently position the DNP-prepared nurse as someone who evaluates and leads with data and technology, not just someone who uses the systems a facility hands them. That shows up specifically in outcomes tied to interpreting data for delivery-system recommendations (CO 3), applying the technology lifecycle and explaining the DNP’s role in it (CO 5), and designing informatics innovations to close practice or efficiency gaps (CO 8).

Read together, the outcomes describe a practitioner who can move between four registers: evidence-based practice (interpreting data into recommendations), clinical decision-making (applying informatics tools at the point of care), data-driven quality improvement (closing performance gaps with evidence), and policy and equity (evaluating how technology access affects underserved populations). The course doesn’t frame this as preparation for a specific job title or certification; it’s built around the DNP End of Program Outcomes and the AACN Essentials domains the syllabus references directly.

NSG 600 Systems Development Life Cycle

Module 4 introduces the Systems Development Life Cycle, the staged framework (typically planning, analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation/maintenance) that governs how a healthcare organization adopts new technology. NSG 600 connects SDLC specifically to two ideas: the DNP functioning as a change agent within that lifecycle, and the use of data to actually measure whether a change worked, rather than assuming it did.

This module is also where the White Paper assignment sits, which makes sense given the connection: writing a credible technology-change analysis requires understanding which lifecycle stage a given implementation is in and what data would demonstrate its impact.

[NSG 600 Systems Development Life Cycle Guide]

NSG 600 Artificial Intelligence and Prompted Engineering

Module 3, “Data to Wisdom: Artificial Intelligence,” pairs directly with course outcome 9’s focus on prompted engineering, the practice of structuring a prompt deliberately to shape the data or output an AI tool returns. This module’s assignment is the Prompted Engineering Exercise, and the underlying skill connects back to CO 4’s broader focus on technology innovation in clinical practice and policy.

On AI and your own graded coursework: the current Wilkes University Graduate Nursing Program policy places firm restrictions on generative AI use in coursework, treating AI-generated text and ideas as inconsistent with original scholarly work unless your course faculty specifically indicates otherwise. That policy also requires students to disable generative AI features in tools like Grammarly. This guide isn’t a substitute for that policy. Review your current course syllabus and university AI policy directly, and confirm with your faculty exactly what’s permitted for any specific NSG 600 assignment before you use any AI tool in connection with graded work.

[NSG 600 Prompted Engineering Exercise Guide]

NSG 600 Technology, Quality Improvement, and Patient Safety

Modules 7 and 8 connect healthcare technology directly to continuous improvement and patient safety, anchored by the SAFER Guide, an Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology framework used to assess EHR safety and optimization, and a Data and QI component examining how data drives quality improvement work. This pairing reflects course outcome 6’s framing: data collection, analysis, security, and confidentiality aren’t abstract IT concerns in this course, they’re treated as inputs to the QI process itself.

[NSG 600 SAFER Guide] · [NSG 600 Data and Quality Improvement Guide]

NSG 600 Health Literacy, eLearning, and Genomics

Three distinct topics run through Modules 9 through 11:

Health literacy (Module 9) is examined specifically alongside AI, how artificial intelligence tools intersect with patients’ ability to find, understand, and act on health information.

eLearning and genomics (Modules 10–11) share a module pairing, with the Evaluation of Emerging Technology assignment and the Genomics Online Module Assignment both due in Module 11. eLearning is examined as a technology-enabled education modality, while the genomics component connects genomic data specifically to informatics practice.

[NSG 600 Health Literacy and AI Guide] · [NSG 600 eLearning and Genomics Guide] · [NSG 600 Emerging Technology Evaluation Guide]

NSG 600 Knowledge Worker

The course closes in Module 12 with the knowledge worker concept, a framework for understanding professionals, including DNP-prepared nurses, whose primary value comes from working with information and data rather than producing a physical output. In an informatics course, this functions as a capstone idea: everything covered from Module 1’s foundational concepts through Module 11’s genomics work builds toward understanding nursing practice itself as knowledge work, dependent on the systems, data, and technology the rest of the course examined.

[NSG 600 Knowledge Worker Discussion Guide]

NSG 600 Deadlines and Weekly Workflow

For 600-level DNP courses, the current syllabus sets this general submission pattern:

• Initial discussion posts: due Wednesday by midnight ET
• Both peer responses: due Saturday by midnight ET
• Other written assignments: due Sunday by midnight ET

Confirm current deadlines against your own course schedule and D2L, since the syllabus notes students should validate due dates directly with course faculty.

A suggested weekly workflow for fitting NSG 600 around full-time work, this is a Gradevia organizational suggestion, not a Wilkes University requirement:

Knowing the assignment’s actual requirement before you start researching is the highest-leverage move here. A vague sense of “this week is about the SDLC” leads to broad, unfocused reading; knowing specifically that Module 4 requires a White Paper connecting a technology change to measurable data lets you research with a target in mind from the start.

APA, Turnitin, and Academic Integrity in NSG 600

A few current requirements worth knowing before you draft anything:

APA 7 is the required citation style for the program, per the current APA Publication Manual (7th ed., 2020) and the writing reference text listed in your course materials. Direct quotations, paraphrases, and summaries all require proper attribution, consistent with standard APA 7 practice.

Turnitin similarity checking is required for NSG 600 discussions and written assignments before final submission. It’s worth treating the similarity report as a formative check, not just a compliance step, reviewing it before you submit gives you a chance to catch attribution issues while they’re still fixable.

On AI use: the current Graduate Nursing Program policy is explicit that AI-generated text and ideas are not treated as original work and that unauthorized AI use in graded coursework is handled as an academic integrity matter, unless your specific course faculty states otherwise for a specific assignment. This extends to generative AI features embedded in writing tools, which the policy requires students to disable. Review your current syllabus and the university’s full academic integrity and AI policy directly, and when in doubt, ask your faculty before using any AI-adjacent tool on graded work.

None of this is exhaustive. For the complete current policy language, consult your syllabus and the Graduate Nursing Program Student Handbook directly.

How to Use This NSG 600 Guide

This page is designed to help you:

1. Understand what a given week’s topic actually covers before you start researching it
2. Identify which modules carry major graded deliverables versus discussion-only weeks
3. Locate the key concepts a topic depends on
4. Plan research time around the actual requirement, not a guess at it
5. Find the detailed guide for a specific assignment once it’s published
6. Review general academic writing and citation expectations for the course

This guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Wilkes University, and it isn’t a substitute for your official syllabus, D2L course materials, grading rubrics, or your course faculty. Where this page and your current official course materials differ, your official materials are the authority.

NSG 600 Assignment and Topic Guides

The full NSG 600 resource cluster, linked as each guide is published:

• [NSG 600 Week 1–2: Foundations and SWOT Analysis]
• [NSG 600 Prompted Engineering Exercise]
• [NSG 600 Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)]
• [NSG 600 White Paper Guide]
• [NSG 600 Human-Technology Interface and Workflow]
• [NSG 600 Video and Infographic Assignment]
• [NSG 600 White Paper Peer Review]
• [NSG 600 SAFER Guide]
• [NSG 600 Data and Quality Improvement]
• [NSG 600 AI and Health Literacy]
• [NSG 600 Emerging Technology Evaluation]
• [NSG 600 Genomics Online Module]
• [NSG 600 Knowledge Worker Discussion]

Frequently Asked Questions

What is NSG 600 at Wilkes University? A 3-credit DNP course in the Passan School of Nursing covering nursing informatics: using information systems to analyze patient data, conduct research, and evaluate project outcomes, with attention to computer-based patient records, database systems, e-health, distance education, and legal and ethical issues in computer use.

How many credits is NSG 600? Three.

What does NSG 600 Nursing Informatics cover? Nine course outcomes spanning informatics application across clinical and population settings, ethical and legal issues, data interpretation, AI and technology innovation, the healthcare technology lifecycle, data security and QI, technology policy and social determinants of health, informatics design, and prompted engineering.

What are the major NSG 600 assignments? A White Paper (Module 4, 30%), a Peer Review of that White Paper (Module 6), an Evaluation of an Emerging Technology (Module 11, 30%), an Online Genomics Module (Module 11, 10%), and weekly discussions (30% collectively).

What topics are covered in NSG 600? Foundations of nursing informatics, AI and prompted engineering, the Systems Development Life Cycle, human-technology interface and workflow, technology and patient safety (via the SAFER Guide), health literacy, eLearning and genomics, and the knowledge worker concept, in that sequence across 12 modules.

Does NSG 600 include artificial intelligence? Yes. Module 3 focuses specifically on AI (“Data to Wisdom”), course outcome 9 addresses prompted engineering directly, and AI is also referenced in Module 9’s health literacy discussion and course outcome 4.

What is the NSG 600 White Paper? The course’s major written analysis, due Module 4 and worth 30% of the grade, connected to the SDLC topic and course outcomes on data-driven organizational change.

What is the NSG 600 SAFER Guide assignment? A Module 7–8 component using the ONC’s SAFER Guide framework to examine EHR safety and optimization, connected to the course’s technology and patient-safety focus.

What is the NSG 600 Emerging Technology Evaluation? A major assignment due Module 11, worth 30% of the grade, evaluating an emerging healthcare technology against course outcomes on data interpretation and informatics innovation.

Does NSG 600 include genomics? Yes, via a dedicated Online Genomics Module Assignment due in Module 11, worth 10% of the grade.

When are NSG 600 discussions due? For 600-level DNP courses, the initial post is due Wednesday by midnight, both peer responses by Saturday, and other written assignments by Sunday, per the current syllabus; always confirm against your own course schedule.

Does Wilkes University allow AI for NSG 600 assignments? The current Graduate Nursing Program policy restricts generative AI use on graded coursework and treats unauthorized use as an academic integrity issue. Review the current policy and confirm with your course faculty before using any AI tool in connection with graded work.

References

Wilkes University, Passan School of Nursing. (2026). NSG 600: Nursing Informatics course syllabus [2026–2027 academic year]. Wilkes University Graduate Nursing Program.

Mastrian, K., & McGonigle, D. (2025). Informatics for health professionals (6th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://books.google.co.ke/books/about/Nursing_Informatics_and_the_Foundation_o.html?id=sQDvEAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).

This guide is written for academic support purposes and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Wilkes University. Course information referenced above is drawn from the 2026–2027 NSG 600 syllabus as provided and may not reflect every term or section. Verify current assignment details, deadlines, and policies in your D2L course shell and with your instructor before finalizing any coursework.