RN-Advanced Practice Nurse

Advanced Practice Nurse

Kaweah Health is a publicly owned, community healthcare organization that provides comprehensive health services to the greater Visalia area in central California. With more than 5,000 employees, Kaweah Health provides state-of-the-art medicine and high-quality preventive services in our acute care hospital, specialized health centers and clinics. Our eight-campus healthcare district has 613 beds and offers comprehensive health services across a broad continuum of care.

Advanced Practice Nurses are dedicated to enhancing the health and well-being of patients/families, nurses and the healthcare system by positively influencing patient outcomes utilizing evidence-based practice and promoting excellent bedside practice through collaboration, leadership and mentoring.

Qualifications:

• CA RN license
• CA licensure as an Advanced Practice Nurse such as Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) or Nurse Practitioner (NP)
• Three years of recent experience in specialty clinical area.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills and effective interpersonal relationships.
• Demonstrates critical thinking, creative thinking, and creative skill in problem solving.
• Self-motivated with the ability to work independently and cooperatively within a team.
• Excellent customer service and communication skills.
• Comfortable and confident in public speaking.
• Detail oriented with ability to handle high volume and multiple task assignments in an organized fashion.

Job Responsibilities:

• Demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of Joint Commission standards, California's Nursing Practice Act, applicable sections of California Title 22 and 16 and all other applicable regulations, applicable Federal guidelines and regulations including HIPAA, American Nurses Association Scope and Standards of Practice, policies and procedures for specialty area.
• Uses knowledge and assessments of patients to design, implement and evaluate plans of patient care related to specialty area.
• Assesses and intervenes in complex health care problems within a selected specialty area.
• Manages populations with disease states and non-disease based etiologies to improve and to promote health care outcomes.
• Collaborates with the interdisciplinary team on most complex patients within specialty area on a consistent basis.
• Designs, implements, and evaluates innovative individual and/or population-based programs of care to achieve high quality, cost-effective outcomes.
• Serves as a leader/consultant/mentor/change agent in advancing the practice of nursing among other nurses and across organizations to achieve outcomes.
• Assists with and promotes staff development.
• Assists with formal and informal education classes.
• Utilizes direct clinical practice to consult, educate, coach, and mentor staff nurses in achieving optimum patient outcomes.
• Mentors and coaches staff and students.
• Serves as a change agent in health care settings by developing high-quality health care standards, assisting in the implementation of standards, facilitating goal setting and achievement, and evaluating outcomes.
• Advances nursing practice through innovative evidence-based interventions, best-practice guidelines, and modification of professional standards and organizational policies that direct the care of nursing personnel and other providers of healthcare to improve outcomes.
• Uses clinical inquiry and research in an advanced specialty area of practice.
• Promotes use and understanding of evidence-based practice.
• Uses a PDSA performance improvement model as an avenue to improve advanced clinical practice and care.
• Evaluates policy and procedures for clinical practice in specialty area.
• Develops and reviews evidence-based policies and procedures.
• Reviews standards of practice and national guidelines for specialty area to determine appropriateness and to reflect current nursing clinical practice.
• Leads multidisciplinary groups to facilitate collaboration with other disciplines in the attainment of outcomes across the continuum of care.
• Performs consultative functions.
• Provides clinical expertise and makes recommendations to physicians, other health care providers, patients, and health care organizations.
• Attends specialty area staff meetings, Unit Based Council, and Nurse Practice Council meetings on an ad hoc basis and Professional Practice Council monthly.
• Attends appropriate Medical staff committees.
• Interprets the dimensions of nursing care requiring resources at the system level, and provides leadership to assure that the system adequately supports the delivery of nursing care.
• Selects, uses, and/or evaluates technology, products, and devices appropriate to the specialty area of practice.
• Expands the practice of nursing through ongoing generation and acquisition of scientific knowledge and skills to maintain expert clinical competences that leads to desired outcomes.
• Stays abreast of current literature in the specialty area of practice.
• Follows Kaweah Health policies when conducting research (ie. Institutional Review Board).
• Submits data from research topics related to the specialty area of practice for publication.
• Demonstrates professional citizenship and fiscal responsibility in the healthcare system by focusing on health policy and/or resource management to ensure quality, cost-effective outcomes of nursing care.
• Works in collaboration with the Nurse Managers, Nursing Directors, Director of Nursing Practice & Professional Development, the Nursing Professional Development Department, and and other Health Care Providers (HCP) to assess and coordinate education to assure the clinical competency of nursing staff.
• Collaborates with staff on complex nursing issues.
• Works in collaboration with the Medical Director in research and development of evidence-based policies and protocols.
• In collaboration with the area Nursing Director, manages and monitors strategic direction for specialty to ensure optimal, efficient, cost-effective care.
• Works in partnership with HCPs and clinical staff to develop an internal marketing strategy for specialty. Identifies appropriate candidates for referral and facilitates referral relationships between HCPs. Collaborates with the Marketing Department to develop internal and external marketing strategies for specialty programs as appropriate.
• Assists in preparing, managing and monitoring operational and capital budget for specialty.
• Collaborates between the nursing unit and ancillary departments to facilitate problem-solving.
• Utilizes appropriate lines of communication within all departments.
• Utilizes resources available to report and track utilization and outcomes management as compared with regional, state and national benchmarking data.
• Enhances professional growth and development through participation in educational programs, professional affiliations, current literature, in-services, workshops and successful completion/maintenance of required certifications of specialty.
• Represents the service line/specialty at department, hospital and community events.
• Directs the clinical nursing practice in the NICU.
• Coordinates and assesses critical care educational development and clinical competency of the nursing staff in the NICU. Ensures continued neonatal critical care nursing competency through educational programs for both the newly-hired and experienced nursing staff.
• Consults with staff on complex neonatal critical care nursing issues.
• Oversees comprehensive parent and or primary caretaker education activities.
• Ensures the implementation of a coordinated and effective discharge planning program.
• Responsible for medical management of inpatients and reporting outcomes data related to the quality of care of the inpatient program and serve as the primary clinical liaison/resource for physicians, health care providers and administrative staff across the Kaweah Health.
• Assimilates the mission, goals and objectives of Kaweah Health systems into a structured approach that allows for the opportunity to provide excellent service, high quality care and fiscal integrity.
• Provides vision and leadership for Diabetes care with attention to continuous quality improvement and cost-effective outcomes. Engagement from medical staff, hospital executives, and units should be secured by feedback on performance.
• Provides inpatient Diabetes medical consultation for involvement in patient management, to include proactive monitoring for glycemic outliers and protocol nonadherence, as well as direct consultation from primary teams, nurses, and patients.
• Maintains familiarity with current national standards for recognition developed by the Joint Commission and evidence-based practice developed by the American Diabetes Association and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Continually reviews program and processes to assure that all program sites comply with these requirements.
• Maintains proficiency of specialty competency and education skills to serve as an ongoing resource for team members, physicians and other staff related to Diabetes care.
• Actively participates in the work of the Diabetes Management Committee at Kaweah Health.
• Contributes to the development and maintenance of inpatient diabetes protocols/care-paths/order sets. Assurance of glycemic management best practices across the spectrum of care settings.
• Provides coaching, mentoring, peer review and guidance to health care providers in the provision of Diabetes care.
• Identifies opportunities to improve patient/customer experience and participates in projects/programs designed to enhance service delivery and patient/customer satisfaction.
• Additionally demonstrates the knowledge and skills necessary to provide care and services appropriate to