The nine Essentials addressed in this document delineate the knowledge and skills that all nurses prepared in master’s nursing programs acquire. These Essentials guide the preparation of graduates for diverse areas of practice in any healthcare setting.

• Essential I: Background for Practice from Sciences and Humanities o Recognizes that the master’s-prepared nurse integrates scientific findings

from nursing, biopsychosocial fields, genetics, public health, quality improvement, and organizational sciences for the continual improvement of nursing care across diverse settings.

• Essential II: Organizational and Systems Leadership o Recognizes that organizational and systems leadership are critical to the

promotion of high quality and safe patient care. Leadership skills are needed that emphasize ethical and critical decision making, effective working relationships, and a systems-perspective.

• Essential III: Quality Improvement and Safety o Recognizes that a master’s-prepared nurse must be articulate in the

methods, tools, performance measures, and standards related to quality, as well as prepared to apply quality principles within an organization.

• Essential IV: Translating and Integrating Scholarship into Practice

o Recognizes that the master’s-prepared nurse applies research outcomes within the practice setting, resolves practice problems, works as a change agent, and disseminates results.

• Essential V: Informatics and Healthcare Technologies

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o Recognizes that the master’s-prepared nurse uses patient-care technologies to deliver and enhance care and uses communication technologies to integrate and coordinate care.

• Essential VI: Health Policy and Advocacy o Recognizes that the master’s-prepared nurse is able to intervene at the

system level through the policy development process and to employ advocacy strategies to influence health and health care.