VP Chief Nursing Officer

Virginia Mason Franciscan Health brings together two award-winning health systems in Washington state  CHI Franciscan and Virginia Mason. As one integrated health system with the most patient access points in western Washington, our team includes 18,000 staff and nearly 5,000 employed physicians and affiliated providers. At Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, you will find the safest and highest quality of care provided by our expert, compassionate medical care team at 11 hospitals and nearly 300 sites throughout the greater Puget Sound region.  While you’re busy impacting the healthcare industry, we’ll take care of you with benefits that include health/dental/vision, FSA, matching retirement plans, paid vacation, adoption assistance, annual bonus eligibility, and more!

This job is responsible for the oversight of nursing quality and standards wherever nursing is practiced in the assigned facility.  As an integral member of the local executive team as well as the Virginia Mason Franciscan Health (VMFH) Nursing Leadership Team, an incumbent is accountable for defining, planning, implementing, evaluating and advancing, through innovation and research, the scope of practice, professional standards and care delivery models as they relate to patient care, patient experience and quality outcomes for the assigned VMFH/VMMC facility.    

An incumbent provides strategic direction and planning to balance efficient and optimal care and for advancing the practice of nursing by ensuring consistent alignment with all organizational goals.  Serving as a site-based chief nursing executive, work also includes responsibility for: 1) facilitating the execution and delivery of clinical transformation; 2) enhancing patient care services; 3) improving clinical quality and safety; 4) developing nursing leadership; 5) maximizing effective resource utilization, 6) working with academic organizations to ensure recruitment, retention and succession planning for nursing at all levels of the organization, and 7) directly supervising subordinate management staff.  Work requires the ability to work effectively in matrixed relationships, influence/persuade others, negotiate effectively with diverse groups of high-level individuals and create support for innovative initiatives, programs/projects and services. 

Job duties require considerable knowledge of the specialized principles, standards and design methodologies relating to healthcare business/product lines, as well as healthcare administration, patient delivery systems and continuum of care integration.  Also requires clinical knowledge of assigned functions and considerable management expertise relating to strategic business planning, process improvement, change management, budget administration and personnel management.

Essential Job Functions:

• Advances the professional practice of nursing by ensuring care delivery is based upon industry standards of clinical quality, service quality, clinical education, engagement best practice and research, industry best practice and outcome performance as defined by organizations such as the American Nurses Association and CALNOC Quality Indicators.
• Establishes strategic direction and priorities for the provision of patient care; develops, implements and evaluates the hospital, ambulatory and skilled nursing models for providing nursing care.
• Provides direction and oversight with VMFH divisional services (e.g. Employee Health, Emergency Management, Compliance, Patient Experience, etc.) to promote effective collaboration and partnerships.
• Defines standards of care which promote and facilitate a multidisciplinary approach to patient care, ensuring that care delivery models and standards of practice are consistent with current professional standards and with the mission, vision and values of the organization
• Continuously improves patient care services through innovative service enhancements, exploration of developmental opportunities, coordination of initiatives across multiple departments, performing benchmarking, market and competitor analysis and understanding quality drivers; actively leads performance improvement initiatives and monitors nursing-sensitive quality and safety indicators.
• Plans, directs and evaluates, through subordinate management, the programs, systems, operations and resources of the site-based assigned clinical nursing and/or related functions to ensure the safe and appropriate delivery of patient care, achievement of clinical core measures and compliance with organizational values, professional standards, internal policies/standards/procedures and applicable regulatory requirements; presents reports on key performance indicators and significant benchmarking metrics.
• Directs and oversees the work of assigned management staff; makes employment decisions, establishes performance standards and manages staffing, scheduling and nursing budgets; addresses performance management concerns and technical issues elevated by subordinates as beyond their scope of authority; holds executive management accountable for achieving results in meeting service excellence objectives.
• Manages resources to assure that recruitment, orientation, education, certification, communication and retention needs of qualified nursing and support staff are met; assures established goals are met for overall and first-year employee turnover.
• Collaborates with the Division CNO and other campus CNOs to implement consistent and standardized approaches to align with organizational and regulatory goals and compliance.
• Assumes an active leadership role with the governing body, senior leadership, medical staff, management and other clinical leaders in the assigned hospital’s decision-making structure and process.
• Promotes the image of VMFH locally and nationally with professional nursing organizations, governmental agencies, special interest groups, nursing schools and other related groups as appropriate.
• Influences public agenda through active participation in Boards, professional societies, teaching opportunities and publishing in peer-reviewed journals.
• Establishes and maintains effective relationships with officials in key public agencies, accreditation agencies, healthcare systems, regulatory bodies (e.g. DOH, TJC, etc.) and related entitles to ensure that VMFH is actively involved in national quality discussion and research.
• Understands and ensures the full optimization of available information technology to achievement of overall business objectives; develops formal strategic/tactical plans, to include both short and long-term business planning, with full accountability for achievement of plan objectives; presents and gains support for recommendations and directs project management efforts to develop/implement planning objectives

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree(s), one of which must be in nursing, graduation from an accredited school of nursing
• 7 to 10 years of nursing leadership work experience in a large, complex healthcare setting(s) that would demonstrate attainment of the requisite job knowledge/abilities.  
• Prior work experience in Magnet organizations is strongly preferred. 

We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

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