Registered Nurse (RN) Charge- MedSurg- CDU (FT Nights)

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Work Shift: Night (United States of America)

About The Facility

Learn more about Wellstar Kennestone Hospital, including our teams, culture, and campus environment: Wellstar Kennestone Hospital.

About the Role

The RN Clinical Charge Nurse is responsible for directing and overseeing the daily activities of the unit on an assigned shift to assure successful safe delivery of care. The Charge Nurse is a caregiver and often takes a modified patient care assignment. They practice in a clinical environment that is administered by Nurse Managers and other leaders and is supported through the WellStar Shared Governance Model. The framework for practice is steered by the WellStar Professional Nursing Practice Model and evidence-based practice and research. RN competencies are derived from these models and supported by the WellStar Core Competencies.

The RN Clinical Charge Nurse is a proactive member of an interdisciplinary team of licensed and unlicensed caregivers who ensure that patients, families, and significant others receive individualized high-quality, safe patient care. Expectations of practice include accountability, responsibility, and authority for the practice of nursing; effective teamwork; delegation; communication; respect; personal development; and development of team members.

The role contributes to the establishment and maintenance of practices that ensure excellence in patient care, provides for the efficient use of resources, and undertakes leadership tasks such as staff schedules, unit patient flow, subject matter expertise for clinical concerns, physician rounding, committee involvement, survey readiness, and other tasks as assigned by the manager. These tasks are fundamental to the department's ability to function smoothly and effectively. The RN Clinical Charge Nurse serves as a resource to other areas, offering opportunities to learn about operational functionality and hospital/facility awareness. They assist in the growth and development of team members to build department skills and inspire expertise.

This leader builds rapport between nurses and physicians to continue service to patients and serves as a role model. It is expected that all RN Clinical Charge Nurses are licensed, knowledgeable, and uphold the practice of nursing as outlined by the Georgia Professional Nurse Practice Act, implementing the Scope of Practice and Code of Ethics Standards put forth by the American Nurses Association. As a member of the patient services team, the individual upholds the voice of the patient, system policies, and procedures while supporting service excellence goals. They possess advanced clinical expertise and utilize this expertise to support and promote the delivery of safe, age-appropriate, and culturally aware patient care, serving as a partner in care.

Responsibilities

• Resources and Support
  • Monitors equipment inventory, location, and utilization to ensure staff have the tools and equipment needed to perform their job.
  • Participates in planning and requesting resources for providing high-quality care and assists in acquiring appropriate staffing during unexpected shortages or surges in census.
  • Proactively plans for the care of patients across the care continuum in the course of giving direct patient care.
  • Participates in the development of protocols and procedures in collaboration with care managers and other members of the healthcare team to achieve best practice outcomes (e.g., decrease in re-admission rates, avoidable days, adverse events).
• Tactical Responsibilities
  • Makes patient assignments, considering new graduates, float staff, and patient type.
  • Conducts daily discharge and length-of-stay reviews.
  • Rounds with physicians/surgeons.
  • Assigns surgery beds in conjunction with the surgery schedule.
  • Consults with Supervisor Nursing Administration (House Supervisor) on bed flow and availability.
  • In the Emergency Services setting: assigns sections, manages the waiting room, and oversees multiple areas opening at different times.
• Exemplary Practice and Outcomes
  • Rounds on every patient daily to evaluate the quality and appropriateness of patient care, including corrective action when needed, utilizing peer coaching and accountability.
  • Performs or provides oversight for the Nursing Process (assessment, diagnosis, identification of outcomes, planning, implementation, and evaluation) in clinical care using evidence-based practice and analytical/critical thinking to ensure individualized care.
  • Coordinates care through effective partnerships, ensuring caring is central to achieving optimal patient care outcomes.
  • Provides or oversees relationship-based care delivery, patient-centered care by partnering with the patient and significant others (as appropriate) using comprehensive hand-off communication processes, interdisciplinary evaluation and communication (e.g., unit rounds, case reviews, peer review), just-in-time and planned patient teaching, and keeping the patient’s goals the focus of the plan of care.
  • Practices using current clinical practice standards with a focus on safety and quality.
  • Within the Emergency Department setting: Charge Nurse rounds on patients in a modified method in conjunction with nurses to focus on patient safety concerns and patient care.
• Teamwork and Collaboration
  • Communicates with nurse manager and/or assistant nurse manager about any needs or concerns pertaining to care delivery or employee performance.
  • Coordinates the delivery and documentation of safe, quality patient care, including promotion of interdisciplinary communication and regular interdisciplinary planning/rounds, completion of timely documentation, and promotion of a respectful, inclusive clinical environment (interdisciplinary rounds do not apply in the Emergency Services setting).
  • Demonstrates teamwork and collaboration by practicing in a fiscally responsible manner and promoting the recruitment and retention of all healthcare team members.
  • Participates and supports performance improvement inclusive of all stakeholders, research, and research utilization to promote safe, quality patient care, including initiating and/or leading such activities.
  • Actively supports and participates in shared governance at all levels in the system.
• Professional Development
  • Ensures patient, family, and staff confidentiality and corporate compliance for self and holds team members accountable, including completing all required mandatory education and proficiencies.
  • Serves as a preceptor (or mentor) for other professional nurses (and staff or students for all disciplines) to ensure a current and future qualified workforce, modeling professional nursing practice and creating a healthy work environment.
• Evidence-Based Practice and Research
  • Promotes evidence-based practice, nursing research, and performance improvement in nursing.
  • Participates in activities such as value analysis as part of the decision-making process in evaluating patient care products.
  • Upholds all healthcare system/organizational policies and procedures, clinical competencies, legal, regulatory, and accreditation requirements, and standards (e.g., TJC Patient Safety Goals and WellStar Health System safety absolutes).
  • Participates in data collection, poses relevant clinical questions to advance evidence-based practice, consults appropriate experts, and uses resources, data, and evidence to address practice questions.
• Performs other duties as assigned and complies with all WellStar Health System policies, standards of work, and code of conduct.

Requirements

• Education:
  • Associate’s degree in Nursing or Diploma in Nursing (required).
  • Bachelor’s degree in Nursing (preferred).
• Licenses and Certifications:
  • Basic Life Support (BLS) or American Red Cross Basic Life Support (ARC-BLS) or Basic Life Support Instructor (BLS-I) (required).
  • Registered Nurse (RN) license in a single state or RN Multi-state Compact license (required).
• Experience:
  • Minimum 1 year of nursing experience (required).
  • Minimum 2 years of nursing experience (preferred).
  • Experience as a relief charge nurse with clinical expertise (preferred).