Unit rationale, description and aim
Advanced nursing practice requires the ability to navigate complex clinical, ethical, and interpersonal challenges while delivering care that is equitable, culturally safe, and centred on patients and families. This unit equips students with the high-level analytical, collaborative, and reflective capabilities, preparing them to respond confidently to contemporary healthcare demands across diverse settings.
Students will explore principles of interprofessional collaboration and shared decision-making, examining how these approaches strengthen care quality and support meaningful engagement with patients, families, and communities. The unit also addresses complex ethical issues encountered in modern practice, encouraging students to synthesise evidence, professional standards, and contextual factors to generate well-reasoned, practical solutions.
Through critical reflection, learners will interrogate the evolving role of the advanced practice nurse, considering responsibilities in leading evidence-informed practice, advocating for safe and ethical care, and contributing to system-level improvements. Emphasis is placed on integrating advanced theoretical knowledge with sound clinical judgment to enhance people-centred outcomes.
The aim of this unit is to develop nurses who can think critically, collaborate effectively, and lead ethically grounded, evidence-based practice that meets the needs of diverse populations and complex healthcare environments.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
Critically apply principles of interprofessional c...
Learning Outcome 01
Critically evaluate complex ethical problems, info...
Learning Outcome 02
Critically examine and justify the leadership role...
Learning Outcome 03
Critically evaluate and apply evidence to inform c...
Learning Outcome 04
Content
Topics will include:
- Key Concepts in Advanced Practice
- Advanced practice in clinical nursing
- Role of the nurse when practising at an advanced practice level
- Professional identity, standards, and development
- Translating evidence into practice collaboration (IPE), communication, and shared decision-making (SDM)
- Family centred care and culturally responsive care
- Key concepts in Evidence-Based Practice
- The 5As of the EBP process
- Translating evidence into practice
- Barriers and enablers in integrating evidence into practice
- Evidence appraisal
- Ethical practice
- Health professionals’ codes of professional conduct
- Health professionals’ codes of ethical conduct
- Ethics and ethical issues in advanced practice
- Clinical governance and high-quality care
- Quality and safety, harm minimisation in specialty practice
- Australian accreditation standards in harm and risk mitigation
- NSQHS standards
- Patient deterioration and resuscitation
- End of life Care and Bereavement in Comprehensive Practice
- Ethical, physical, psychological and psychosocial impacts experienced by patients, their families and carers
- People/family centred care
- Cultural competency/linguistically diverse patients
- Needs of family
- Moral distress
- Care for diverse patient populations
- Paediatric care
- Obstetric care
- Older adult care
- Neurodiversity and gender diversity care
- Comprehensive Practice in Primary care and Rural/Remote Settings
- Principles of primary care and community engagement
- Preventive health and chronic disease management
- Access, equity and cultural safety in remote settings
- Scope of practice and autonomy in rural nursing
- Leadership, Wellbeing and Self-care in Advanced Practice
- Leadership and mentorship as a nursing practising at advanced practice level
- Clinical decision-making and autonomy
- Recognising burnout and compassion fatigue
- Impact on clinical decision-making and patient safety
- Strategies for resilience, peer support and reflective practice
Assessment strategy and rationale
The assessment strategy uses two scaffolded written assignments to cultivate advanced clinical reasoning, interprofessional collaboration and shared decision‑making, ethical analysis, leadership, and evidence‑based practice in advanced nursing practice. Assessment Task 1 introduces critical analysis through a gerontological ethical dilemma, requiring students to apply collaborative and shared decision‑making principles to deliver culturally responsive, people‑ and family‑centred care. This task strengthens advanced ethical reasoning and the ability to generate context‑responsive solutions to complex clinical issues.
The second assessment task requires students to provide a comprehensive case analysis that integrates advanced knowledge, critical appraisal of evidence, and justification of leadership actions in challenging clinical contexts. Students apply research to design context‑responsive, evidence‑based interventions and articulate the leadership role of the advanced clinical nurse in advocating for safe, ethical, and high‑quality care.
This scaffolded design reflects AQF Level 8 expectations by emphasising the synthesis of theory and practice, autonomy in clinical decision‑making, and scholarly engagement with complex healthcare challenges. To pass the unit, students must demonstrate achievement of all unit learning outcomes and obtain a minimum mark of 50% in graded assessments.
Overview of assessments
Assessment Task 1: Written Assignment This asses...
Assessment Task 1: Written Assignment
This assessment involves analysing a real-world case with an ethical dilemma. Critically examine clinical practices, ethical principles, and interprofessional collaboration. Evaluate the shared decision-making process and whether culturally safe, equitable, people- and family-centred outcomes were achieved.
30%
Assessment Task 2: Written Assignment This wri...
Assessment Task 2:
Written Assignment
This written case study involves analysing the care of a complex patient with a variation in health status. It assesses the ability to critically evaluate literature, analyse and justify the advanced practice nurse’s role in harm minimisation, quality and safety, propose evidence-based, culturally responsive interventions aligned with people-centred care and shared decision-making.
70%
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
This online unit adopts active learning strategies to support students in developing advanced clinical reasoning, ethical decision-making, and evidence-based practice. Learning activities are designed to reflect the complexity of real-world healthcare environments, including primary care and rural/remote contexts, where adaptability and autonomy are essential. Students will engage with culturally safe, equitable, and people-centred care through structured online discussions and reflective activities. The unit highlights the specialty nurse’s role in interprofessional collaboration, risk assessment, harm mitigation, and leadership in evidence-informed practice, aligned with the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards. The flexible delivery model ensures accessibility for working professionals while providing expert academic support. Collaborative online discussions foster shared learning, professional networking, and the development of a forward-thinking, people-centred nursing practice.