Where compassion meets innovation and technology and our employees are family.

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GENERAL PURPOSE OF JOB:
The staff nurse (RN) is a professional Registered Nurse who provides direct nursing care to assigned patient population. The staff nurse, utilizing the nursing process, plans and delivers effective patient care within the Texas scope of practice and within the framework of Driscoll Health System’s vision of excellence and integrated care delivery. The staff nurse complies within the established standards of practice, policies and clinical guidelines reflective of evidence-based best practice. The practice of the staff nurse contributes to creating an environment that is patient focused, family centered and is designed to provide continuation of care and patient transition management.

ESSENTIAL FINCTIONS AND BEHAVIORAL EXPECTATIONS

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily.  The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. This job description is not intended to be all-inclusive; employees will perform other reasonably related business duties as assigned by the immediate supervisor and/or hospital administration as required.

• Maintains utmost level of confidentiality at all times.
• Adheres to hospital policies and procedures.
• Demonstrates business practices and personal actions that are ethical and adhere to corporate compliance and integrity guidelines.
• Travel to satellite clinics, when needed. 

Quality of Care:

• Participates in QA tool development.
• Collects QA data as indicated.
• Identifies trends in patient care outcomes for QA monitoring or staff education.
• Participates in clinical research following specific protocols.
• Ensures safe care by using assertive interactions with the health care team.

Assessment and Monitoring:

• Performs initial and focused assessment.
• Recognizes and reports actual and potential health problems.
• Reports pertinent patient response to interventions.
• Modifies plan of care based on patient assessment.
• Uses chain of command to obtain appropriate health care response as an advocate for the patient.

Professional Work Role/Leadership:

• Demonstrates flexibility in staffing and scheduling to meet unit needs.
• Prioritizes plans organizes and directs care of assigned patients.
• Identifies team conflict and helps to initiate resolution.
• Recognizes own limitations and seeks guidance.
• Supports goals through participation and compliance in unit activities and decision-making.

Therapeutic Interventions:

• Administers medications per clinical guidelines, recognizes abnormal responses to medication therapy and initiates corrective therapy.
• Develops, implements, and individualized plan of care to meet patient needs and diagnoses.
• Intervenes appropriately after correlating clinical picture to therapeutic treatment plan.
• Selects and utilizes appropriate equipment, devices, and supplies based on patient needs and treatment plan.

Crisis Management:

• Identifies critical changes in patient’s condition and follows through with appropriate actions.
• Ensures the correct functioning of emergency equipment identifies deficits and follows through.
• Assists with changes in unit needs during a crisis situation.
• Re-established unit function after a crisis situation.
• Participates in review of unit response to crisis situation.

Helping/Teaching:

• Identifies barrier to learning, develops and implements discharge plan based on patient/family needs.
• Incorporates cultural aspects of illness/hospitalization for patient/family into the plan of care.
• Established and maintains a therapeutic relationship with patient and family.
• Decreases apprehension and anxiety using individualized interventions to ensure patient comfort dignity.
• Functions as a patient/family advocate seeking direction as needed to provide safe, effective, efficient, and timely care.

Education and/or Experience:

• Graduate from an accredited school of nursing
• Current RN license in the State of Texas or Compact State
• Minimum of 1 year of experience in hospital surgery or outpatient surgery, Pediatric preferred

Certificates, Licenses, Registrations.

• Licensed in State of Texas as an RN
• Certification in specialty preferred