Chief Nursing Officer

Job Description

Job Description

This job is posted on behalf of The Exeter Group by Top Echelon.

The Chief Nursing Officer is the senior executive accountable for nursing practice, nursing operations, workforce strategy, clinical quality, patient safety, regulatory readiness, patient experience, and nursing-sensitive outcomes across the hospital and Health Care Center. The CNO serves as the executive voice of nursing and partners with the CEO, CMO, COO, CFO, other executive leadership, and Board to translate organizational strategy into reliable, evidence-based clinical operations. The role is designed as a visible, outcomes-oriented executive position not a unit-level supervisory role. The CNO establishes systems, standards, accountability, and leadership capability so that frontline teams can deliver safe, equitable, efficient, patient-centered care. The CNO is expected to maintain regular presence in clinical areas, use data to identify variation and risk, remove barriers to care, and develop leaders who can sustain performance.

Responsibilities:

• Set and execute the nursing strategic plan in alignment with the hospital’s mission, strategic priorities, community needs, and financial plan.
• Maintain executive accountability for the quality and safety of nursing care, including nursing-sensitive outcomes, preventable harm, escalation of clinical risk, and implementation of corrective action.
• Direct the hospital’s nursing staffing plan and workforce model using patient acuity, volume, skill mix, competency, workload, quality outcomes, and applicable law/regulation—not fixed ratios or historical schedules alone.
• Create a culture of safety, psychological safety, professional accountability, just culture, and high reliability in which staff are expected and supported to speak up, escalate risk, learn from events, and standardize best practices.
• Build a professional nursing practice environment through shared governance, evidence-based practice, interdisciplinary collaboration, nursing autonomy within scope, professional development, recognition, and succession planning.
• Own nursing operational performance, including productivity, premium labor, overtime, agency utilization, vacancy/turnover, span of control, throughput, discharge readiness, and appropriate resource stewardship.
• Partner with Quality, Medical Staff, Pharmacy, Case Management, Infection Prevention, Patient Experience, Human Resources, Finance, IT/Informatics, and ancillary leaders to improve hospital-wide outcomes.
• Maintain continuous survey readiness and compliance with CMS Conditions of Participation, Joint Commission requirements, Illinois requirements, and other applicable accreditation and regulatory standards.
• Use digital health, clinical informatics, analytics, and emerging technology—including appropriate AI-enabled tools—to improve reliability, reduce documentation burden, strengthen decision support, and monitor performance.
• Represent nursing performance, risks, resource needs, and improvement priorities to the CEO, Board, medical staff, and other governance bodies using concise, actionable data.
• Patient experience: nurse communication, responsiveness, discharge communication, service recovery, and other relevant HCAHPS/patient experience domains.
• Professional practice: shared governance participation, specialty certification, evidence-based practice projects, professional development, and leader competency.
• Regulatory readiness: tracer performance, repeat findings, timely corrective actions, and sustained compliance.
• Financial stewardship: performance to budget, labor variance, supply utilization, premium labor reduction, and capital prioritization.
• Coordinate and present patient care reports for presentations to the Board of Directors.
• Evaluate and advise on the impact of long-range planning, introduction of new programs/strategies and regulatory action.
• Serve on physician and nursing committees.
• Maintains accountability with nursing leadership in the development and implementation of the philosophy and objectives for patient care services.
• Serves as the voice for nurses at the Executive level.
• Establish Patient Care unit goals and objectives.
• Develop in conjunction with the unit managers a budget for their respective departments.
• Propose staffing requirements based on collected data.
• Review supplies and related unit expenses.
• Propose, research, and evaluate new equipment and technology required for effective patient care.
• Assure that patient care conforms to the standards of care identified for the service and is delivered in an organized effective manner.
• Assess the work performance of nursing leaders and prepare performance evaluations.
• Participate in planning and organizing orientation and in-service programs with the Nurse Instructors to meet the learning needs of staff.
• Monitor learning programs to determine effectiveness.
• Promote and assist in the development, implementation, and revision of nursing care plans. Assure measurable goals are identified which conform to the standard of care.
• Review medical records to confirm significant nursing documentation meets legal parameters and the requirements of regulatory agencies.
• Problem-solve or refer problems appropriately according to the organizational structure of the hospital and of the department of nursing.
• Interpret and enforce hospital policy and nursing policies. Assure approved techniques and procedures are utilized in patient care.
• Review new products and supplies to determine quality and adaptability to nursing procedures.
• Interact with patients, families, physicians, directors of ancillary and support services and the community.
• Participate in the planning and coordinating of nursing activities with other disciplines.
• Participate in nursing quality improvement activities. Supervise the implementation of changes to improve patient care.

Education and Experience:

• Master’s Degree in Nursing
• Doctoral degree (DNP, PhD, DHA, or equivalent) preferred
• Licensed Registered Nurse in the state of Illinois.
• National nurse executive certification such as NE-BC, NEA-BC or CENP
• Minimum of ten (10) years of clinical nursing experience with at least five (5) years of executive-level nursing management experience (e.g. Director of Nursing) in an acute care hospital setting.
• Experience in a safety-net, urban community, teaching, or high-acuity hospital environment preferred.
• Experience with Joint Commission/CMS survey readiness, nursing workforce redesign, shared governance, evidence-based practice, and performance improvement.
• Experience leading significant improvement in quality, workforce stability, patient flow, patient experience, and/or financial performance.
• Minimum of fifteen (15) years of clinical experience in an acute health care setting with at least ten (10) years of supervisory experience.

This job description is designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties and responsibilities required of employees assigned to this job.  

Our client is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, age, sexuality, or gender identification.