Registered Nurse, Adult Primary Care/General Internal Medicine, Per Diem

POSITION SUMMARY:

The registered nurse, adheres to the rules and regulations of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Nursing. is primarily responsible for professional performance and direct patient care.  The role encompasses nursing assessment, diagnosis, planning, intervention, evaluation, and coordination of care for patients and their families across the health care continuum.  The registered nurse is accountable for clinical, educational, quality and fiscal patient care outcomes using the model of care designed by the nursing department and in accordance with established agency policies, procedures, protocols, guidelines and standards of practice.

Position: Registered Nurse
Department: General Internal Medicine (Adult Primary Care)
Schedule: Per Diem - Days/Evenings

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Experience with durable medical equipment (DMEs)

• Ability to function in a high-paced outpatient clinic.

• Experience with telephone triage preferred

• Triages the effectiveness of the care given by the interdisciplinary care team, identify problems, and guides the patient to solutions.

• Knowledge of adult vaccines

• Basic computer proficiency inclusive of ability to access, enters, and interpret computerized data/information.

• Effective interpersonal skills to facilitate communication with various members of the health care team, patients, and families.

• Performs assessment data collection and documents subjective and objective data. Reviews basic health history information for patients.

• Organizational skills to set priorities and efficiently complete assigned work.
  Multilingual skills (beyond that of English) in languages appropriate to the patient populations served by the medical center preferred.

• Analytical ability to solve clinical nursing issues and conduct quality improvement research utilization projects.

• Ability to effectively delegate appropriate patient care activities.

• Effective verbal and written communication skills appropriate to the patient populations served.

• Physical ability to meet the core job responsibilities in accordance with practice setting demands for the patient populations regularly served.

• Ability to effectively manage stress due to critical issues related to patient care, changing organizational climate and personnel issues.

• Ordering, administering, and documenting physician approved medication treatments

• Provide education about health conditions to patients and their families.

• In emergency/crisis situations, demonstrates effective decision making in accordance with standards of clinical nursing practice, re-prioritizes patient care needs, initiates appropriate response actions, and directs other team members to ensure a complete and coordinated response.

• Documents patient’s response to interventions as well as revisions in diagnoses, outcomes and plan of care according to departmental policy.

STANDARDS OF PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE

• Systematically evaluates the quality, cost, and effectiveness of nursing practice.

• Participates/leads quality improvement and/or research activities as appropriate to the individual’s position, education, skills, and practice environment.

• Uses the results of patient satisfaction, quality improvement and/or research data to initiate changes in practice.

• Accounts for completing daily patient classification data and incident reports in a timely manner.

• Participates in cost containment initiatives and practices.

• When two or more practice options exist that achieve the same quality of expected patient outcome, evaluates factors related to safety, effectiveness and cost when selecting the appropriate option.

• Acts in a professional manner relative to practice standards, statutes, and regulations.

• Practices in compliance with established practice standards, policies, procedures, protocols, guidelines, statutes and regulations (example: DPH, JCAHO, Fire Code, OSHA, and DEA).

• Functions without supervision in a manner appropriate for level of experience and education.

• Responsible for seeing things through to completion and for informing appropriate staff of outcomes.

• Offers, seeks out and acts upon constructive feedback regarding professional practice to improve daily practice and to achieve goals identified during performance appraisal.

• Takes appropriate steps to effectively resolve peer conflicts or investigate questionable activities. Discusses such with individuals involved and seeks assistance from nurse man