| Course | NR 702A DNP Project & Practicum I |
|---|---|
| Week | 5 |
| Paper type | Aim statement draft |
| Length | About 1,120 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 702A Week 5
Aim Statement Draft: One Sentence for Behavioral Health Contact After a Positive PHQ-9, and a Defense of Each of Its Parts
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 702A: DNP Project & Practicum I
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Aim Statement Draft: One Sentence for Behavioral Health Contact After a Positive PHQ-9, and a Defense of Each of Its Parts
The Aim
For adult primary care patients at this site whose PHQ-9 total is 10 or higher, completed behavioral health contact within 30 days of the visit will increase from 34% to 50% by 30 June 2027.
The Sentence, in Order
"For adult primary care patients at this site": patients aged 18 and older, matching the health center's adult primary care service and the dashboard's population.
"Whose PHQ-9 total is 10 or higher": the threshold the site uses for referral, which corresponds to at least moderate depressive symptoms on a validated measure (Kroenke et al., 2001).
"At this site": one site, primary care visits only, excluding behavioral health visits and the pediatric service.
"Completed behavioral health contact": a visit with the consultant or psychologist, in person, by video or by phone, recorded as a behavioral health encounter. Not a referral, a booking or a message.
"Within 30 days of the visit": counted from the date of the primary care visit.
"Will increase from 34% to 50%": the baseline from April to June 2026, and the health center's own target.
"By 30 June 2027": the end of the quarter in which the project's measurement period ends.
What the Aim Refuses to Say
It does not say what will be changed to get there. Same-day handoffs, faster callbacks, text reminders and booking at the front desk are all possibilities, and choosing among them belongs to the next term, after the evidence review and the root cause analysis. An aim that named the intervention now would commit the project before it had looked at why patients are lost.
Where the Number Comes From
Both numbers in the aim come from the site, not from the literature. The 34% is the matched figure for April to June 2026, produced by the quality analyst. The January to March 2026 figure, now available, was 31% (91 of 293), so the baseline is consistent across two quarters.
The 50% is the health center's own target in its 2026 quality plan. It was not borrowed from a study. Is it plausible here? The breakdown of lost patients suggests yes: 71 of 189 lost patients were never reached and 15 had no call attempt, so a change that reaches patients sooner could recover many of those 86. Recovering about half of them would close the gap. That reasoning is rough, but it shows the target is within reach of a change aimed at the first days after the visit, rather than requiring a new service.
Why That Date
The project's four terms run from September 2026 to July 2027. A change would be tested from about January 2027 and measured through the April to June 2027 quarter. The quarter ending 30 June 2027 is the last full quarter of the dashboard inside the project, and it is the quarter the quality committee will review in July, before the agreement expires in August.
The Line Back to the Gap
The gap was 16 percentage points, about 46 completed contacts a quarter. The aim closes that gap exactly and no more. A larger aim, such as 70%, would exceed the health center's own target and the evidence of what might be recovered; a smaller one would leave the site below its own standard.
How the Aim Fits the Health Center's Calendar
The quality committee sets the following year's targets in December, and the board approves the quality plan in January. If the committee raises or lowers the 50% target for 2027, the aim would follow the new target only with the sponsor's agreement and an amendment to the charter. The director of behavioral health expects the target to stay the same, since the 2026 figure fell well short of it. The aim's date, the end of June, also falls before the committee's midyear review in July, which gives the project a natural point to report.
What Could Make the Aim Wrong
If the January to March 2027 quarter shows a rise before any change, perhaps from a new staff member or a seasonal pattern, the baseline will need revisiting. If the dashboard's matching method changes, the aim's measure will need to be matched to the new method. Both are noted now so that a later change to the aim can be explained.
Who Reviewed the Aim
The director of behavioral health read the draft on 6 October and asked that "completed" be defined to include telephone visits, which the consultant uses for patients who cannot travel. The definition above includes them. The quality analyst confirmed that the measure as worded can be produced from the dashboard and referral log each month, not only each quarter, which will let the project see change sooner than the aim's date.
How the Aim Will Be Tracked
Each month from January 2027, the analyst will produce the same matched figure for the previous month. Monthly figures will be noisier than quarterly ones, since about 95 patients a month screen positive, so the project will read them on a run chart against the two-quarter baseline rather than judging any single month. The aim is judged on the April to June 2027 quarter, the same three-month window as the baseline, so that seasonal differences in the clinic's patient mix are less likely to explain any change.
Why Not a Clinical Outcome
An aim based on symptom improvement, such as a fall in PHQ-9 scores at six months, would be closer to what matters to patients. It was set aside for three reasons: the project's timeline does not allow six-month follow-up for patients screened in spring 2027; symptom change depends on treatment after the first contact, which is out of scope; and the site's data on repeat PHQ-9 scores are incomplete for patients who are not seen. First contact is the step the project can change and measure, and it is the step without which no later outcome is possible.
How the Aim Connects to the Evidence
Collaborative care models improve outcomes partly by ensuring patients reach behavioral health care promptly (Unützer et al., 2002; Archer et al., 2012). The aim targets that first step. Measurement-based care, in which symptoms are measured and acted on, is a core feature of effective behavioral health integration (Fortney et al., 2017), and the aim uses the same PHQ-9 the site already collects.
References
Archer, J., Bower, P., Gilbody, S., Lovell, K., Richards, D., Gask, L., Dickens, C., & Coventry, P. (2012). Collaborative care for depression and anxiety problems. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2012(10), CD006525. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD006525.pub2
Fortney, J. C., Unützer, J., Wrenn, G., Pyne, J. M., Smith, G. R., Schoenbaum, M., & Harbin, H. T. (2017). A tipping point for measurement-based care. Psychiatric Services, 68(2), 179-188. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.201500439
Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., & Williams, J. B. W. (2001). The PHQ-9: Validity of a brief depression severity measure. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16(9), 606-613. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001.016009606.x
Unützer, J., Katon, W., Callahan, C. M., Williams, J. W., Jr., Hunkeler, E., Harpole, L., Hoffing, M., Della Penna, R. D., Noël, P. H., Lin, E. H. B., Areán, P. A., Hegel, M. T., Tang, L., Belin, T. R., Oishi, S., & Langston, C. (2002). Collaborative care management of late-life depression in the primary care setting: A randomized controlled trial. JAMA, 288(22), 2836-2845. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.288.22.2836
What the NR 702A Week 5 assignment asks for
Write a single sentence that identifies the service, the group inside it the change is aimed at, the direction, a magnitude and a date. Do not say what will be introduced; that is a decision for a later term, after the evidence and root causes have been examined. Then defend the sentence part by part. Say where the present figure came from and why the size of the claimed change is plausible at this service rather than borrowed from a study. Explain why the date fits the site's calendar. Draw a line back to the gap from the previous week. Say why you chose this kind of measure over others, who reviewed the aim and what could make it wrong.
How the NR 702A Week 5 example is put together
The sample's aim covers adults at the site with a PHQ-9 total of 10 or higher, completed behavioral health contact within 30 days and a rise from 34% to 50% by 30 June 2027. Each clause is explained, including a definition of completed contact widened to telephone visits at the director's request. The intervention is left unnamed. The baseline is confirmed by a second quarter at 31%, and the target is the health center's own; 86 never-reached or never-called patients make it plausible. The date matches the last full quarter before the agreement expires. Symptom change is set aside as unmeasurable in time, and seasonal or method changes are named as risks. The aim's monthly tracking on a run chart is described.
NR 702A Week 5 rubric: what full points look like
Aim statements lose most when they name the intervention, which commits the project before the evidence and root causes are known. Next is an aim with no number or date, which cannot be approved or refused. Many aims borrow a target from a study in a different setting rather than deriving one from the site. Dates chosen to fit the course rather than the site's calendar often fall before the data exist. Writers frequently skip the line back to the gap, so the aim's size looks arbitrary. Aims that never say what could make them wrong invite a later change that looks convenient rather than planned. Aims that leave out who reviewed them also miss a chance to show the site helped shape them.
NR 702A Week 5 help from the desk
An aim that survives the sponsor's questions has to be defensible word by word. A guided draft can help you build the sentence from service, group, direction, size and date, and defend each part from the site's own data and calendar. We can also help you explain why you chose your measure and name what could make the aim wrong. Asking the person who produces the data whether the aim can be measured monthly is worth doing before you submit. The aim and its defense are yours.
Get a NR 702A Week 5 example written to your instructions
Tell the desk what your section asks an aim statement to contain, and send the figure your gap paper landed on if you have one. The sample comes back as one sentence with its defense underneath, written so that nothing in it commits you to a design you have not made. Inside 24 to 48 hours, and the first is free.
More NR 702A papers and DNP samples
- NR 702A Week 1: DNP Trouble Post
- NR 702A Week 2: Practice Gap Write-Up
- NR 702A Week 3: Setting Description
- NR 702A Week 4: Site Agreement Summary
- NR 702A Week 6: Project Charter Draft
- NR 702A Week 7: Practicum Objective Set
- NR 702A Week 8: Proposal Readiness Memo
NR 702A Week 5 questions, answered
Can the aim mention the intervention at all?
Some sections allow a phrase such as through a practice change, and none of them reward naming a specific one. The safer draft states the result and the deadline and leaves the method open, because term two is where the change gets designed and defended. An aim written around a tool you later abandon forces a rewrite of every document that quotes it.
How big should the claimed change be?
Big enough to matter to the service and small enough to be credible from where it starts. A figure pulled from a trial conducted with resources you do not have reads as borrowed, and one so modest that nobody would notice reads as evasion. The defense paragraph is where the size is argued, and it is usually the paragraph faculty comment on first.
My aim keeps changing. Is that a problem this early?
Movement in term one is ordinary; movement in every term is a different matter. What faculty look for by Week 5 is a sentence stable enough for the charter to quote and for the next term to design against. If yours has moved three times, the instability is usually in the gap paper underneath it rather than in the aim, and that is where the repair belongs.
Where can I find a free NR 702A Week 5 sample paper?
The finished aim statement draft for the depression screening handoff is reproduced on this page.
Why does the NR 702A Week 5 aim not name the intervention?
Choosing the change belongs to the next term, after the evidence review and root cause analysis, and naming it now would commit the project too early.