Nurse Educator

Job Summary:

The Clinical Nurse Professional Development Educator (NPD) plays a vital role in assessing, identifying, planning, implementing, coordinating, facilitating, and evaluating educational activities to improve healthcare practice. This position requires collaboration with staff, leadership, faculty, and researchers to develop and evaluate professional development programs that enhance professional role competence, continuous learning, and growth. The NPD Practitioner must be a proactive member of an interdisciplinary team, ensuring that patients, families, and significant others receive individualized high-quality, safe patient care.

Core Responsibilities and Essential Functions:

• Exemplary Practice:
  • Conducts learning needs assessments of the target audience
  • Validates identified needs with learners, content experts, and nurse leaders
  • Prioritizes anticipated needs in alignment with system strategic goals
  • Uses data to identify future trends and issues
  • Identifies practice gaps related to educational needs of learners and other pertinent situations
  • Determines needs from current issues and trends (falls, infections, new equipment, regulatory changes, etc.)
  • Prioritizes data collection based on immediate or anticipated needs and documents evidence of professional practice gaps in a retrievable manner
  • Identified outcomes for learning activities and programs
  • Involves learners/stakeholders in formulation of desired outcomes
  • Uses outcomes to demonstrate learning activities and programs are meeting their intended purpose and quality
  • Establishes a plan that prescribes strategies, alternatives, and resources to achieve expected outcomes
  • Educational objectives developed to meet needs of learners
  • Reflects adult learning and instructional design principles in planning and resource availability
  • Incorporates diverse learners in planning education to meet gender, race, culture, and generational differences within the target audience
  • Collaborates with other disciplines to enhance comprehensiveness of the plan and documents the planning process
  • Implements the educational plan
  • Coordinates the education
  • Facilitates positive learning
  • Evaluates progress toward attainment of outcomes
  • Selects valid and reliable relevant methods and instruments to measure processes and outcomes
  • Involves learners and stakeholders in evaluation plan to measure processes and outcomes relevant to the program
  • Evaluates data to guide future decision making for changes and improvement
  • Disseminates results of the evaluation of learning activities and educational programs
  • Revises based on evaluation data
• Teamwork and Shared Leadership:
  • Collaborates with support departments, including organizational learning, safety, and quality, IT, BI, and other departments/roles to provide contributions and advancements in decisions regarding education
  • Serves as a clinical resource to nursing staff, leadership, and medical staff for interdisciplinary practice
  • Demonstrates teamwork and collaboration by practicing in a manner that is fiscally responsible and promotes the recruitment and retention of all healthcare team members
  • Consults with preceptors/orientees to facilitate completion of orientation
  • Partners with others to effect change and generate positive outcomes
  • Engages colleagues in the planning and implementation of lifelong learning activities for individuals and groups of learners
  • Facilitates and supports performance improvement, inclusive of all stakeholders, to promote safe, quality patient care, including participating in such activities as well as promoting an inter/intradisciplinary process and actively supports/participates in shared governance at all levels in the system
• Professional Development:
  • Ensures patient/family/staff confidentiality and corporate compliance for self (and accountability for team members) requirements, 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 that there is a current and future qualified workforce, modeling the professional practice of nursing and creating a healthy work environment
  • Participates in educational activities related to knowledge and skills appropriate to the specialty area, practice setting, nursing education role, and learner diversity
  • Applies current standards, guidelines, policies, and regulations into education that is offered
  • Seeks experiences to develop, maintain, and improve competence in nursing professional development
  • Seeks professional certification in NPD
• Creative Innovations:
  • Promotes evidence-based practice, 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
  • Participates in QI initiatives; disseminates research findings through educational programs/courses; and applies principles of implementation science to maintain and sustain practice changes
  • Upholds all health care system/organizational policies and procedures and clinical competencies put forth by this job description and professional association, including legal, regulatory, and accreditation requirements and standards, ensuring, by way of example, such goals as TJC Patient Safety Goals and Wellstar Health Systems safety absolutes
  • Integrates ethics in all areas of practice
  • Develops innovative solutions and strategies to secure appropriate resources and technology for professional development initiatives
  • Introduces and supports new ideas and embraces meaningful change; specialist: continuously scans the environment for trends and issues that require change and fosters acceptance, adoption, and action toward change
• Clinical Resources and Support:
  • Performs the Nursing Process (assessment; diagnosis; identification of outcomes; planning; implementation, and evaluation) in the performance of clinical care using evidence-based practice, uses analytical/critical thinking, and ensures that care is individualized; coordinating care through effective partnerships recognizing that caring is central to achieve optimal patient care outcomes
  • Practices using current clinical practice standards
  • Coordinates the delivery and documentation of safe quality patient care that promotes the professional care delivery model, including diverse and inclusive interdisciplinary communication methods (interdisciplinary rounds, case review, etc.); completion of timely documentation and promotion of a respectful, inclusive clinical environment
  • Completes all initial and ongoing professional competency assessment, required mandatory education, population-specific education

Required Minimum Education:

• Graduate of an accredited/approved school of nursing
• Bachelor's Degree in Nursing

Required Minimum License(s) and Certification(s):

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

Additional License(s) and Certification(s):

• Some specialties may require ACLS, NRP, or PALS per unit requirement
• If required, must receive ACLS, NPR, or PALS within 6 months of employment in position within 180 Days

Required Minimum Experience:

• Minimum 3 years of nursing practice experience
• Experience with direct patient care
• This role may be required to support more than one facility or specialty
• Acute Care/Med Su experience preferred

Required Minimum Skills:

• Ability to read, write, and speak English language, optimize the use of technology to support learning, and holds advanced computer skills
• Demonstrates emotional intelligence
• Strong interpersonal, collaborative skills along with customer service skills required
• Ability to function in a fast-paced environment and respond to emergencies in using a decisive, composed, and respectful manner
• Possesses excellent time management skills
• Possesses a strong understanding of adult learning theories and can utilize multi-methods to implement training/development
• Uses tools, theories, skills, and knowledge of the specialty to improve the healthcare practice of learners
• Critical thinking skills and education innovation are maturing
• Maintains educational or clinical competencies appropriate for role
• Promotes concept of lifelong learning
• Uses appropriate measurement tools and methods in quality improvement and evidence-based practice
• Involves learners in assessment of needs and identification of outcomes
• Ensures educational programs are congruous with organizational mission and goals
• Produces desired outcomes relevant to organization
• Selects appropriate teaching strategies to facilitate behavioral change
• Evaluates effectiveness and outcomes of educational endeavors
• Promotes career development and role transition
• Develop, coordinate, manage, facilitate, conduct, and evaluate onboarding, orientation, and competency programs for nursing and other healthcare personnel

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