Long Term Care Director of Nursing (DOH/NMBHI #13170)

Salary: $53.27 - $85.24 Hourly / $110,812 - $177,299 Annually. This position is a Pay Band C13. This posting will be used for ongoing recruitment and may close at any time.

About the role

The Director of Nursing provides administrative and clinical leadership to ensure nursing services are continuously available, appropriately staffed, patient-centered, safe, and compliant with applicable requirements. The role establishes consistent nursing standards, supports rehabilitation and chemical-dependency programs, strengthens nursing accountability, monitors patient outcomes, and addresses clinical, staffing, admission, and regulatory risks.

Responsibilities

• Nursing Administration and Leadership
  • Direct, organize, administer, and evaluate the total nursing program for the New Mexico Rehabilitation Center.
  • Establish nursing goals, priorities, performance expectations, and operational plans that support the facility's mission and patient-care programs.
  • Serve as the principal nursing advisor to the Hospital Administrator and executive leadership regarding nursing practice, clinical operations, staffing, patient safety, admissions, quality outcomes, regulatory risks, survey findings, corrective actions, and emerging clinical concerns.
  • Participate as a member of the facility's executive leadership team and contribute to strategic planning, policy development, resource allocation, program evaluation, and organizational decision-making.
  • Establish clear accountability among nursing managers, supervisors, charge nurses, licensed nursing personnel, patient-care staff, and contract nursing personnel.
  • Provide administrative nursing leadership during surveys, emergencies, outbreaks, serious clinical events, staffing shortages, and operational disruptions.
  • Remain accountable for the quality and continuity of nursing services provided throughout the facility.
• Nursing Operations and Patient Care
  • Ensure nursing services are available and appropriately organized to meet patient needs 24 hours per day.
  • Oversee nursing care provided to patients receiving medical rehabilitation, withdrawal-management, residential chemical-dependency treatment, and other assigned services.
  • Ensure timely and accurate nursing assessments, reassessments, care plans, treatment plans, medication administration, provider notifications, discharge planning, and clinical documentation.
  • Ensure nurses recognize, report, and respond appropriately to changes in condition, medical emergencies, behavioral concerns, withdrawal symptoms, falls, injuries, medication events, infection concerns, and other clinical risks.
  • Monitor compliance with clinical standards for assessment, care planning, medication management, infection prevention, patient safety, patient rights, admissions, transfers, discharges, emergency care, and documentation.
  • Ensure nursing care is coordinated with physicians, advanced practice providers, pharmacy, therapy, dietary, social services, counselors, psychology, case management, and other members of the interdisciplinary team.
  • Evaluate nursing program needs, service delivery, clinical workflows, and patient outcomes and implement changes when improvement is needed.
  • Ensure patients and their representatives receive appropriate education regarding medications, treatment, safety, discharge needs, and follow-up care.
• Staffing and Workforce Management
  • Maintain sufficient qualified nursing personnel on all shifts based on patient census, acuity, clinical needs, unit operations, required observations, staff competencies, and applicable regulatory requirements.
  • Develop, review, and approve nursing schedules and staffing plans.
  • Review nursing staffing, vacancies, turnover, agency use, overtime, recruitment needs, call-outs, uncovered shifts, and competency gaps.
  • Monitor staffing patterns and make timely adjustments to maintain safe patient care and continuity of services.
  • Collaborate with the Hospital Administrator, Human Resources, finance personnel, and nursing leadership to recruit, retain, orient, and develop qualified nursing personnel.
  • Evaluate whether staffing concerns used to delay or deny admissions represent an actual patient-safety limitation or a correctable operational issue.
  • Reduce unnecessary dependence on overtime and contract staff while maintaining safe and appropriate coverage.
  • Develop succession and continuity plans for nursing leadership and other critical nursing positions.
  • Ensure contract and agency nursing personnel meet the same orientation, training, competency, documentation, and performance expectations as state employees.
• Supervisory and Personnel Management
  • Direct, supervise, and evaluate assigned nursing managers, supervisors, and other nursing personnel.
  • Assign work, establish priorities, communicate expectations, and monitor completion of assigned responsibilities.
  • Participate in recruitment, interviewing, selection, on-boarding, evaluation, coaching, recognition, corrective action, and disciplinary processes.
  • Address employee-performance concerns promptly and consistently in coordination with Human Resources.
  • Hold nursing leaders accountable for staffing, clinical practice, documentation, education, quality monitoring, and completion of corrective actions.
  • Ensure nursing personnel practice within their authorized scope of practice and demonstrated competencies.
  • Promote professional conduct, respectful communication, teamwork, accountability, and a culture of patient safety.
  • Conduct routine nursing leadership and staff meetings to communicate expectations, review performance, and address operational concerns.
• Admissions Review
  • Provide nursing oversight of clinical admission-review processes for applicable programs.
  • Ensure admission decisions are based on documented clinical needs, eligibility criteria, medical stability, bed availability, staffing competency, program capability, required equipment, medication needs, and patient safety.
  • Coordinate with medical providers, admissions personnel, therapy, counselors, case management, nursing supervisors, and other departments to support timely and appropriate admission decisions.
  • Review 100 percent of denied admissions to determine whether the denial was clinically appropriate, operationally justified, consistently applied, and adequately documented.
  • Identify avoidable admission denials resulting from staffing, competency, equipment, communication, incomplete referral review, delayed provider review, unclear admission criteria, regulatory misinterpretation, or failure to consider available clinical alternatives.
  • Support appropriate census and access to care without accepting patients whose needs exceed the facility's licensed services or demonstrated capability to provide safe care.
• Regulatory Compliance and Survey Readiness
  • Ensure nursing services comply with all applicable federal, state, licensing, accreditation, professional, and facility requirements.
  • Maintain nursing readiness for Joint Commission, CMS, state licensing, Board of Nursing, pharmacy, infection-control, complaint, and other regulatory reviews.
  • Translate regulatory and accreditation requirements into clear nursing procedures and operational expectations.
  • Direct nursing participation in mock surveys, clinical tracers, record reviews, patient interviews, staff interviews, environmental rounds, and focused audits.
  • Review nursing-related survey findings, complaints, deficiencies, citations, and regulatory concerns.
  • Develop or oversee nursing plans of correction and ensure corrective actions address the identified deficiency, protect affected patients, correct underlying causes, assign accountability, and include measurable monitoring to demonstrate sustained compliance.
  • Verify that corrective actions have been implemented and remain effective rather than relying only on reported completion.
  • Promptly notify the Hospital Administrator of significant clinical, regulatory, staffing, or patient-safety risks.
  • Prepare or contribute to regulatory reports, responses, corrective-action submissions, and other required documentation.
• Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement
  • Direct nursing participation in the facility's quality assurance and performance-improvement program.
  • Establish nursing quality measures, performance expectations, monitoring processes, and reporting requirements.
  • Monitor high-risk clinical areas, adverse events, staffing concerns, admissions, complaints, and regulatory trends.
  • Review patient outcomes involving falls, injuries, medication errors, adverse drug events, infections, pressure injuries, hospital transfers, readmissions, behavioral emergencies, withdrawal complications, restraints, grievances, unexpected events, and other nursing-sensitive indicators.
  • Direct or participate in root-cause analyses, serious-event reviews, mortality reviews, and performance-improvement projects.
  • Identify recurring patterns that indicate a nursing, staffing, communication, documentation, competency, or operational system failure.
  • Require corrective action when audit results identify noncompliance, unsafe practices, inaccurate reporting, or failure to implement and sustain improvements.
  • Ensure improvement plans identify responsible personnel, required actions, completion dates, outcome measures, and follow-up monitoring.
  • Present nursing quality findings, trends, risks, and recommendations to executive leadership and appropriate quality committees.
  • Use quality data to guide nursing education, policy revisions, staffing decisions, resource allocation, and clinical-practice improvements.
• Nursing Policies and Procedures
  • Develop, review, approve, implement, and maintain nursing policies, procedures, manuals, protocols, standing orders, and clinical guidelines.
  • Ensure policies are current, evidence-based, operationally clear, appropriately approved, communicated to staff, and supported by education and competency validation.
  • Review nursing policies following regulatory changes, survey findings, adverse events, program changes, or identified system failures.
  • Eliminate conflicting, outdated, unclear, or duplicative nursing procedures.
  • Ensure nursing personnel have access to current policies and understand their responsibilities.
  • Monitor implementation of new and revised policies through observation, audit, staff feedback, and performance review.
• Education and Competency
  • Establish nursing orientation, annual education, in-service training, continuing education, and competency-validation requirements.
  • Identify facility-wide nursing education needs based on audits, surveys, adverse events, staff performance, regulatory changes, clinical trends, program needs, and identified competency gaps.
  • Ensure education addresses the needs of medical rehabilitation, withdrawal management, chemical-dependency treatment, emergency response, medication administration, infection prevention, patient safety, and other assigned clinical services.
  • Ensure nursing personnel complete required education and demonstrate competency before independently performing assigned duties.
  • Support nursing managers and supervisors in strengthening leadership, clinical decision-making, staffing, regulatory compliance, performance management, and quality-improvement practices.
  • Evaluate whether education has resulted in improved practice and sustained compliance.
  • Promote professional development, nursing certification, advancement, and leadership succession.
• Medication Management and Pharmacy Coordination
  • Ensure nursing compliance with medication-order review, medication administration, controlled-substance management, storage, documentation, monitoring, and reporting requirements.
  • Collaborate with pharmacy and medical staff to address medication errors