Quality Assurance Nurse

Job Description

Quality Assurance Nurse

Summary

The Quality Assurance Nurse (QA Nurse) optimizes quality of care across all health center departments and sites by undertaking efforts to review clinical competency, ensure regulatory adherence, prevent adverse events, and promote infection prevention.

The QA Nurse must be a registered nurse in the state of Connecticut and have at least three years of experience in regulatory readiness, adverse event review, and quality improvement. The QA Nurse should have a track record of using a collaborative team-oriented approach to lead others through change.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Ensures adherence to Department of Public Health and Joint Commission standards across all clinical departments and sites by remaining up to date on relevant standards, conducting staff training in conjunction with clinical leadership, developing protocols and procedures as needed, and performing intermittent chart reviews and audits at clinical sites
• Trains staff across various departments as needed on quality assurance and regulatory related issues.
• Works with nurse managers across clinical departments to ensure regular clinical competency verification of nursing staff
• Champions the internal event reporting system to improve uptake and use among clinical staff while creating a “just culture” to ensure staff feel safe reporting adverse and near-miss events
• Conducts Root Cause Analyses for clinical adverse events and near miss events; develops action plans to reduce risk of recurrence; follows the progress of these action plans
• Identifies areas of potential risk and develops systems within the organization to minimize risk of adverse events or negative quality outcomes
• Works with Medical Director of Quality and Operations and Quality Improvement Project Manager on high priority clinical quality improvement projects
• Works collaboratively with medical, nursing, and administrative leadership across clinical departments
• Performs other duties as requested by leadership team

Qualifications

Education: Must have a valid CT Registered Nurse license. Current BLS required

Experience: Five years of nursing experience required with at least 3 years of experience in quality assurance, quality improvement, and regulatory readiness activities.

Knowledge/Abilities: The QA Nurse will need clinical nursing experience. The QA Nurse must be generally familiar with regulatory readiness, able to develop an in depth understanding of DPH and Joint Commissions standards, and eager to remain up to date on changes to these requirements. The QA Nurse will need to possess excellent organizational skills, a proactive approach, and an ability to collaborate across roles and disciplines. The QA Nurse should be able to interact effectively with all levels of staff, discuss negative events with others in a supportive and non-punitive way, and inspire others around him or her toward a goal of continual improvement.

The QA Nurse will participate in health center committees and department management meetings as needed. The QA Nurse should have strong analytical skills, should be independent and self-motivated yet eager to work with others, and should be facile with interpreting numerical outcome data and presenting it visually (e.g. Excel/PowerPoint).