Director, Nursing - Acute Care
Wellstar Health Systems

Facility: Kennestone Hospital

Job Summary:

The Director of Nursing is a registered professional nurse who provides leadership and management of a specific service line through the application of advanced competencies in communication; job knowledge, professionalism and business skills. This leader is a member of the chief nursing officer's administrative team and may serve as her/his designee for assigned responsibilities. He/she reports to the nursing operations leader and demonstrates own leadership to effectively partner with nursing leadership, hospital vice presidents, medical staff and other departments to create a center of excellence for their specialty service and to meet or exceed the hospital's mission, vision and goals. This leader administers to two or more cost centers with a range of 50 to 200 FTEs in a hospital or specialty hospital in a smaller rural community area or system accountability for a domain of nursing practice. The Director of Nursing handles a budget less than 80 million dollars.

The Director of Nursing provides direct leadership for a group of nurse managers and others who comprise their specialty service line. He/she is a standard bearer and holds leaders and staff accountable for the delivery of safe, quality care and services through effective communication, employment of transformation leadership, managing by walking around, and instilling an accountability-based practice setting. The director of nursing serves as sponsor for performance improvement; inspires others to seek opportunities to grow and improve their performance and successfully applies lean and evidenced based practice to ensure all targets pillar outcomes are achieved. This leader employs all safety first interventions and as the chief safety officer creates a culture of safety for his/her service line through the development/use of these skills by other leaders, physicians and staff. He/she effectively uses data and technology to make decisions and proactively mitigates unnecessary risks for his/her area of responsibility, providing instruction and mentoring for assigned leaders to be able to do the same. This leader ensures that nurse managers and staff create a desirable, safe work environment that enables the organization to meet or exceed all licensure, regulatory and accreditation standards. He/She models the way by fostering exemplary skills in attaining effective teamwork and collaboration with physicians, staff, patients and other departments.
It is expected that all nurse leaders are licensed, knowledgeable and uphold the practice of nursing as outlined by the Georgia Professional Nurse Practice Act and implements the Scope of Practice and Code of Ethics Standards put forth by the American Nurses Association. As a member of the patient services team, it is expected the individual upholds the voice of the patient, system policies and procedures while supporting service excellence goals.

Required Minimum Education:

• Bachelor's Degree Baccalaureate degree in nursing (BSN) from accredited nursing schools is required and Master's Degree in Nursing or in related field is required. Must be enrolled in a Masters program with completion expected within 12 months of hire date is required.

Required Minimum License(s) and Certification(s):
All certifications are required upon hire unless otherwise stated.

• Reg Nurse (Single State) or RN - Multi-state Compact
• Basic Life Support or BLS - Instructor

Required Minimum Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of experience as a Registered Nurse; includes three (3) years of progressive operational leadership to include direct management of others and financial management is required.
• Experience managing department-level budget and metrics is strongly preferred.

Required Minimum Skills:

• Should possess excellent verbal and written communication skills and relationship building;
• a knowledge of the health care environment;
• leadership that includes such skills as successfully implementing and managing a change process ability to use systems thinking- and inspire, coach others to be successful;
• model the way for professional practice;
• professionalism and teamwork/collaboration for self/department/medical staff;
• and possess necessary business skills to manage human and material resources.
• Must be a continuous learner who understands health care financing;
• strategy and operations for running a business unit(s);
• and effectively employ data and technology to support work processes and make decisions.
• Supports shared governance or shared decision making;
• manage the design and delivery of care that in based on evidence and focused on quality and safety.
• Knowledge of risk management and various accreditation/regulations/licensing requirements assuring that these are upheld while advancing industry standards through the achievement of goals by effective management and measurement of outcomes.

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