Director, Nursing Services

This position is accountable for leadership and management of the performance of the Care Coordination Division for the Department of Nursing Services and Patient Care within University of Iowa Health Care and Clinical Enterprise to develop and implement care coordination as a foundation of a new model of health care delivery that is patient-centered, accessible, and an interprofessional approach. The Care Coordination Division - Adult includes Utilization Management (UM), Nurse Navigators, Post-Acute, Accountable Care Organization (ACO), Durable Medical Equipment (DME), and Social Services.

Accountable to enhance the organization’s capacity to perform by addressing medical and psychosocial needs of patients and their families by providing timely care coordination at appropriate levels through an interprofessional approach and coordinating patient care throughout the continuum in order to achieve the most cost effective, efficient, and high-quality outcomes.

Job Responsibilities:

• Provide supervision of daily operations of the assigned staff providing service throughout the University of Iowa Health Care.

• Develop and retain qualified nursing and social work staff. For direct reports, assure performance expectations are clearly understood.

• Hold staff accountable to meet or exceed patient needs/expectations as well as maintain standards of collaboration and respect within and among interprofessional teams.

• Build an effective divisional/cross divisional leadership team. Prepare divisional leadership staff to lead/participate/serve as effective members of the interprofessional clinical team.

• Demonstrate commitment to people; coach staff to participate in team decision-making.

• Actively seek participation from staff on decision-making and customer service improvement activities.

• Adhere to all University of Iowa Health Care guidelines and respective collective bargaining agreements.

• Assume responsibility for development, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance of cost accounting, rate setting, and patient support fund usage.

• Utilize and analyze metrics to drive value to assure cost effective allocations of resources.

• Critically analyze patient census, inpatient bed needs, and available resources to maintain safe patient care.

• Lead/participate in reduction of length of stay and other initiatives to increase efficiency and effectiveness of health care delivery which reduce overall costs to the organization.

• Benchmark with academic medical centers to determine best practices related to patient flow and throughput.

• Optimize skill mix, scope of practice, and operational efficiency.

• Participate in annual budget preparation, continuous monitoring of divisional budget, and justification of variances as needed.

• Ongoing monitoring and maintenance of divisional position control/position management control documents.

• Participate in bed huddles to triage and assist with patient throughput, beds opening up, and anticipated bed needs for the day.

• Lead initiatives to optimize patient care and quality outcomes.

• Monitor outcome metrics = quality, safety, cost, and satisfaction across clinical units.

• Support nursing and interprofessional leadership to design efficient/effective and safe systems and processes to ensure patient safety and optimize patient outcomes.

• Develop and support staff to effectively triage patient discharges to home or to another agency or facility.

• Ensure regulatory standards are met and understood by personnel, e.g. assessing patient flow issues throughout the hospital, the impact on patient safety and a plan to mitigate the impact.

• Identify and address opportunities for improvement related to patient care including developing plans to assess and correct patient discharge barriers.

• Seek and evaluate best practices by benchmarking with like institutions to continuously improve patient care outcomes.

• Enhance care coordination by the interprofessional team.

• Challenge past practices with patient throughput/placement across the continuum.

• Prioritize and manage strategic goals. Achieve alignment of division and unit goals around strategic intent/aim.

• Communicate a shared vision for optimal care for all patients.

• Achievement of quality improvement in relation to assigned/delegated pillars of the Department of Nursing Services and Patient Care strategic plan.

• Participate in the design of systems to measure and monitor outcomes of care.

• Identify and communicate need for additional resources to address patient care issues.

• Identify hospital operations’ strengths and weaknesses and act on opportunities for improvement for patient care/quality, staff engagement, and overall operational efficiency.

• Develop effective working relationships among nursing and patient care leadership, other professional departments, clinical administrators, department and divisional leadership, hospital administration clinical liaisons, and directors of hospital support departments.

• Develop effective working relationships with medical leadership (e.g. Department Executive Officers (DEO), Associate Chairs for Clinical programs, Medical Directors).

• Receive and disseminate information about strategic initiatives, process improvements, best practices, and innovation through a formal plan for communication.

• Develop and communicate a shared vision for patient- and family-centered care.

• Maintain a climate of learning that promotes collaborative research for students in the University of Iowa Health Science Colleges and other health programs.

• Provide staff with tools to learn and apply skills related to change management/work redesign.

• With physicians and other University of Iowa Health Care staff, provide systems to implement clinical guidelines and research utilization for the effective management and movement of patients through the health care system.

• Support staff education including, but not limited to, competency assurance and professional development/mentorship.

• Partner with the College of Nursing and the School of Social Work faculty in creating a learning community for staff and faculty.

• Evidence Based Practice – benchmark best practices with comparable settings.

• Develop, direct, and implement a comprehensive nursing and social services research program by promoting research activities that support program, departmental, and organizational objectives.

• Coordinate development of research grant proposals and the acquisition and administration of grant funds.

• Assure access to University of Iowa Health Care information about clinical, financial, and customer service outcomes and enable evidence-based practice projects and implementation within the division.