Facility: Douglas Hospital

Job Summary:
The Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) is a Registered Nurse with a Master's degree in Nursing from a university with a specialized CNL program. The competencies unique to CNL practice are clinical leadership, care environment management, and clinical outcomes management. The CNL enacts these competencies at the clinical microsystem defined as functional front-line unit such as a hospital unit, outpatient clinic, or home health setting, or unit level to influence care delivery processes and dynamics. The CNL works with healthcare team members and leaders to coordinate care, manage resources, and compile and evaluate data with a focus on quality, patient safety, and outcomes.
The CNL role was developed to seamlessly align with WellStar's Nursing Professional Practice Model and Care Delivery Model, and is based in part on the American Association of Colleges of Nursing's "Competencies and Curricular Expectations for Clinical Nurse Leader Education and Practice" (2013), and an empirically validated conceptual model for CNL practice (Bender et al. 2016).
The CNL partners with patients, staff, and providers. The CNL collaborates with nursing leadership to focus on the patient, at the point of care as a subject matter expert. To support this effort, he/she must maintain clinical knowledge.
It is expected CNLs are RNs, CNL certified, clinically knowledgeable, uphold the practice of nursing as outlined by the Georgia Professional Nurse Practice Act, and implement the Scope of Practice and Code of Ethics Standards put forth by the American Nurses Association. As a member of the healthcare team, it is expected the CNL upholds the voice of the patient and WellStar's policies and procedures while supporting service excellence goals.
Core Responsibilities and Essential Functions:
CLINICAL LEADERSHIP
- CNL degree/certification and ongoing CNL education.
- Actively pursues new knowledge and skills as CNL practice, patient needs, and health care microsystems evolve.
- Healthcare ethics and advocacy.
- Focus on being a resource to the patient, microsystem healthcare team and the nursing profession.
- Continuous clinical leadership.
- Focus on communication, relationship building, creating and sustaining teams, and supporting staff engagement on a daily basis.
- Proactively addresses issues
- Focus on quality, patient safety, patient outcomes *Demonstrates ability to collaborate with other members of the healthcare team *Develops in organizational LEAN management principles such as team input, huddles, Gemba walks, evaluating value in process steps, barriers to patient flow, A-3, etc. *Fosters and supports shared governance to ensure nursing's voice in the organization *Works to ensure compliance with existing regulatory and disease specific standards pf care such as TJC, CMS, etc. CARE ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT
- Understand Healthcare Systems as Bundles of Care Delivery Processes.
- Focus on microsystem care processes and care delivery dynamics to optimize and/or redesign them to better serve the patient and team.
- Microsystem Team Coordination and Management.
- Focus on microsystem rounding structures and processes.
- Evidence Based Practice.
- Focus on provider and microsystem team best practices.
- Quality Improvement.
- Focus on quality with the purpose of improving care safety, effectiveness, timeliness, efficiency, quality, and the degree to which care is patient- centered on current standards, EBP, regulatory requirements.
- Knowledge Management Using Healthcare Informatics and Technology.
- Focus on data and technology as a means to assess, drive needed change, and evaluate patient and microsystem care processes and outcomes
- Stewardship of Microsystem and Clinical Resources.
- Appropriate Utilization and/or Delegation of Nursing and Microsystem Resources through audits, observations and proper usage of materials. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
- Supports clinical and professional development of nursing and other disciplines through learning needs assessment, mentorship, role modeling, and support of shared governance.
- Knowledgeable role models for the professional scope and standards of practice for nurses; advocates for the role of professional nursing.
- Serves as a resource for experienced and novice nurses in care delivery. Promotes a positive work environment by being readily available and accessible to the care delivery team.
- CNL completes all his/her initial professional competency assessment; required mandatory education and population specific education.
- Serves as a CNL preceptor and mentor and coach for other professional nurses, by modeling the professional practice of nursing, adapting the teaching process to meet learning needs, and creating a healthy work environment. CLINICAL OUTCOMES MANAGEMENT
- Disease Management and Risk Anticipation for microsystem.
- Focus on high risk patients to anticipate and mitigate risks to patient safety and ensure patient care delivery needs are met.
- Policy Mandated Healthcare Outcomes.
- Accountability for mandated quality and safety outcomes to be in line with national, regional and/or organization thresholds, regulatory disease specific accreditation standards.
Required Minimum Education:
Master's Degree Graduate degree in Nursing (MS, MSN, DNP) from an accredited school or university that has a CNL program recognized by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. 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
• Advanced Cardiac Life Support-Preferred or ACLS - Instructor-Preferred or ACLS - Provisional-Preferred

Additional License(s) and Certification(s):
Must have certification as a Clinical Nurse Leader from the Commission of Nurse Certification. Upon Hire Required
Required Minimum Experience:
Minimum 2 years acute care nursing for similar patient population.
Required and
Progressive experience in health care including involvement in direct patient care, educating staff, and problem solving of unit or organizational issues. Required
Required Minimum Skills:
Ability to identify improvement in clinical operations and implement change and willingness to challenge established ways of doing things in a constructive way. High
Ability to lead, mentor and develop staff. High
Exemplifies a strong, positive attitude toward internal and external customers and continuous service improvement. High
Excellent conflict resolution skills. High
Has well developed diplomatic, tact and listening skills. High
Adept at using technology as a tool to support real-time education at the point of care. High
Uses quality improvement methodologies to evaluate failures and patient safety practices at the microsystem level. High
Skilled at delegation, oversight and evaluation of care given. High