Assistant Director, Nursing and Clinical Practice

Kaiser Permanente; Fresno (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Kaiser Permanente is seeking a senior Nursing Leader to help shape scope and standards of practice for RNs, LVNs, and allied health professionals. This role leverages data insights to support ongoing quality improvement and adoption of evidence-based practices across inpatient, ambulatory, home health, and other settings.

The position involves guiding clinical policy development, educating administrators and clinicians on regulatory requirements, and building strategic relationships to support

Qualifications

• BSN and at least five years in health care operations or related field.
• At least four years in a leadership role with or without direct reports.
• At least three years of customer or member/patient service.
• Basic Life Support (BLS) required at hire.
• Registered Nurse License (California) required at hire.

Responsibilities

• Creates and manages developmental opportunities; fosters collaboration across teams.
• Translates plans into action, ensures policies are followed, and aligns with department strategies.
• Oversees ambulatory operations, drives timelines, and monitors budgets and performance.
• Develops partnerships with physicians and leaders to align care delivery and data initiatives.
• Leads projects to improve patient-centered operations and ensure readiness for audits and compliance.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic planning

Patient service

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in Nursing (BSN)

Job description

Job Summary

In addition to the responsibilities listed below and in collaboration with and under the direction of the Nursing and Clinical Practice Officer, this position is also responsible for assisting in the planning of the scope and standards of practice for RNs, LVNs, and other health professionals; leveraging data insights to aid ongoing quality improvement programs to ensure the implementation and adoption of clinical best practices and evidence-based practices within departments and across the organization (e.g., hospitals, in-patient, 24/7, out-patient, home health, continuing care); leveraging evidence-based research to guide policy and procedure development; identifying and escalating regulatory risks; educating administrators, physicians, and staff on the interpretation of applicable regulatory requirements; aiding the development of strategies, programs, and improvement opportunities to assist multidisciplinary teams in clinical education, patient safety, and risk management initiatives; providing consultation to departments to support positive change and drive clinical best practices; building strategic relationships with key leaders to support 24/7 care delivery and align care delivery initiatives; and contributing to and making recommendations for clinical workflows by evaluating current practices and supporting improvement plans as appropriate. May include operational responsibilities.

Essential Responsibilities

• Creates and advocates for developmental opportunities for others; builds collaborative, cross-functional relationships. Solicits and acts on performance feedback; works with leaders and employees to set goals and provide open feedback and coaching to drive performance improvement. Pursues professional growth; hires, trains, and develops talent for growth opportunities; strategically evaluates talent for succession planning; sets performance management guidelines and expectations across teams / units. Oversees implementation, adapts, and stays up to date with organizational change, challenges, feedback, best practices, processes, and industry trends; shares best practices within and across teams. Fosters open dialogue amongst team members, engages, motivates, and promotes collaboration within and across teams; motivates teams to meet business objectives. Delegates tasks and decisions as appropriate; provides appropriate support, guidance and scope; encourages development and consideration of options in decision making; fosters access to stakeholders.
• Manages designated units or teams by translating business plans into tactical action items; oversees the completion of work assignments and identifies opportunities for improvement; ensures all policies and procedures are followed; partners with key stakeholders and business leaders to ensure products and/or services meet requirements and expectations while aligning with departmental strategies. Aligns team efforts; builds accountability for and measuring progress in achieving results; assumes responsibility for decision making; fosters direct reports to resolve escalated issues as appropriate. Communicates goals and objectives; incorporates resources, costs, and forecasts into team and unit plans; ensures matrixed resources are fulfilling service or performance requirements across reporting lines. Removes obstacles that impact performance; identifies and addresses improvement opportunities; guides performance and develops contingency plans accordingly; influences teams and units to operate in alignment with operational and business objectives.
• Manages ambulatory operations to support patient care by: providing additional oversight/span of control for, negotiating, and driving timelines for action item implementation and monitoring compliance to financial commitments; identifying, requesting, and implementing workflows and strategies to achieve performance targets and aligning with market strategies; developing and guiding short- and long-term operational initiatives and managing program, services, and/or systems; assuming accountability for human resource management related to performance measurement and employee management; leading continuous survey and compliance readiness activities, including mock rounds and mitigating issues, to maintain compliance and regulatory standards and developing procedures for preparing audit documentation, information, and reports; and contributing to the development, monitoring and control of departmental payroll and non-payroll budget and other aspects of financial management and cost control/reduction.
• Ensures standardized care delivery by: developing strategic partnerships with physicians and subject matter experts and service area leaders and overseeing highly complex workstreams with large program impact; leading the development and implementation of plans, policies, and processes for data gathering, using relevant data gathered, and analysis while ensuring guideline and regulation alignment; aligning patient care management solutions across departments and/or service lines; monitoring and/or managing resources as needed in clinical areas to ensure appropriate assignment and utilization; leading multidisciplinary ambulatory team(s) and holding team(s) accountable for performance; assisting the design of emergency preparedness programs and ensuring the departments emergency preparedness and recovery plans are current and that managers and staff are trained and know what is expected during and after an emergency; and leading project teams, initiatives and monitoring implementation, equitable distribution of resources, and delivery on objectives.
• Manages improvements to patient-centered operations and technology processes by: leading and implementing long-term strategic projects designed to remediate issues and improve quality, service, affordability, and/or operating efficiency; developing and managing a structured approach for identifying root causes and implementing solutions to improve the performance of operations system processes in response to barriers and/or issues; and ensuring performance metrics used to monitor the success of strategic improvement projects are tied to strategic organizational initiatives.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Nursing (BSN) AND minimum five (5) years of experience in business operations, health care operations, clinical health care, or a directly related field.
• Minimum four (4) years of experience in a leadership role with or without direct reports.
• Minimum three (3) years of customer or member/patient service experience.

• Basic Life Support required at hire

• Registered Nurse License (California) required at hire

Preferred Qualifications

• Three (3) years of project/program management and/or implementation-related experience.
• Three (3) years of experience in process improvement.