Charge Nurse Outpatient Clinic

About Shepherd Center 

With five decades of experience, Shepherd Center provides world-class clinical care, research, and family support for people experiencing the most complex conditions, including spinal cord and brain injuries, multi-trauma, traumatic amputations, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and pain. An elite center ranked by U.S. News as one of the nation’s top hospitals for rehabilitation, Shepherd Center is also recognized as both Spinal Cord Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems. Shepherd is the only rehabilitation facility in the nation with an intensive care unit on-site, allowing us to care for the most complex patients and begin the rehabilitation process sooner. Shepherd Center treats thousands of patients annually with unmatched expertise and unwavering compassion to help them begin again.

Shepherd Center's culture is one of hope, humor, and hard work. You will enjoy career growth, strong relationships with co-workers, strong support from leadership, and fun activities that have kept over 12% of staff members working at Shepherd for more than 20 years.  

The Charge Nurse ensures that the ANA scope and standards of practice and the code of ethics for nurses are the foundation for nursing practice. This role in the organization is expected to promote high quality care, outcomes, nursing research and evidence-based practice and to contribute to building and maintaining a strong environment that facilitates collaboration with the transdisciplinary healthcare team to achieve quality outcomes. The Charge Nurse interacts with and contributes to the professional development and image of all unit staff practicing in an Open Governance model of nursing practice. In this role, the Charge Nurse contributes to driving progress in the nursing department of Shepherd Center. The Charge Nurse has primary accountabilities for effective clinical and personnel management of the unit for a given shift.

Job Responsibilities:

• Accountable for the coordination of nursing care, including direct patient care, patient/family education and transitions of care.

• Supports professional nursing practice across practices settings and across the continuum of care to meet the needs of the patient and family.

• Functions within the nursing care model, which includes accountability for planning, implementing, evaluating, and communicating all phases of nursing care for assigned patients.

• Provides leadership through activities such as preceptor role, informal leadership roles, and quality improvement efforts.

• Delegates patient care according to skill level, experience, patient acuity, fiscal accountability, and adequacy of resources.

• Communicates patient care, departmental issues, and staff concerns to the appropriate leaders.

• Serves as a resource for guidance and assistance to the staff.

• Collaborates and supports the plan of care as established by the interdisciplinary team and prescribes interventions to attain the expected outcomes.

• Performs consistent with Shepherd Center standards, clinical policies, and procedures.

• Practices proper safety techniques in accordance with Center and departmental policies and procedures. Responsible for the reporting of employee/patient/visitor injuries or accidents, or other safety issues in the occurrence notification system.  

• Actively participates in center-wide efforts that affect nursing practice.

• Adheres to patient/family centered principles using the communication and engagement tools (OARS/AIDECT).

• May participate on committees or projects.

• Practices proper safety techniques in accordance with Center and departmental policies and procedures. Responsible for the reporting of employee/patient/visitor injuries or accidents, or other safety issues to the supervisor and in the occurrence notification system.  

• Monitors and ensures compliance with all regulatory requirements, organizational standards, and policies and procedures related to area of responsibility. Identifies potential risk areas within area of responsibility and supports problem resolution process.

• Performs other duties as