Clinical Nurse, Outpatient - Donor Operations

JOB SPECIFIC COMPETENCIES

Transformational Leadership and New Knowledge, Innovation, and Improvement Transformational Leadership: The Clinical Nurse is responsible for the provision of care to patients, donors, and families consistent with the unit's values, beliefs, and behaviors to meet the demands of the future.

• Participates in daily unit operations to achieve and maintain the financial goals by utilizing all resources effectively and efficiently

• Provides quality and fiscally responsible donor and patient care

• Proactively anticipates donor, patient and family needs in collaboration with the Transfusion Nurse Coordinator and other departments.

• Utilizes available material resources responsibly for direct donor and patient care. Practices autonomously within the scope of professional nursing practice - donor and patient care competency.

• Demonstrates loyalty and commitment to the unit's inter-professional team. Participates in change initiatives.

• Incorporates the process of change in daily practice.

• Fosters peer relationships and participates in coaching and mentoring. Supports an environment that values and respects the diversity of staff and patients/donors - patient care competency

New Knowledge, Innovation and Improvements: The Clinical Nurse is responsible and accountable for providing exemplary nursing practice and has an ethical and professional responsibility to contribute to innovation, improvement, and new knowledge.

New Knowledge

• Applies new and existing evidence in donor and patient care standards, incorporating new knowledge, innovations, and improvements in clinical practice and the donor and patient care delivery system - professionalism competency

• Complies with regulatory standards

• Fosters an environment that challenges the status quo, embraces and promotes change Innovation

• Practices within the established donor and patient care delivery system, consistent with the Professional Practice Model

• Demonstrates proficiency in the application of technology in providing care to patients/donors and families

Improvement

• Participates in assessing, coordinating, implementing, and evaluating the delivery of safe and effective patient/donor and family care utilizing evidence-based and empirical outcome measurements

Structural Empowerment The Clinical Nurse engages in problem solving in order to meet unit goals and achieve desired outcomes.

Provides feedback to the Nurse Coordinator, Laboratory Manager and other departments through the evaluation of performance of clerical and clinical staff

• Supervision: Fosters an environment conducive to Just Culture by holding self and staff members accountable

• Evaluation: Participates in the evaluation of staff members' clinical performance through contributions to the annual evaluation and professional development processes

• Productivity: Maximizes performance within the scope of practice to accomplish unit goals and achieve desired outcomes

Demonstrates effective communication, collaboration, conflict management, and resolution - oral communication competency

Contributes to an innovative environment where strong professional practice flourishes and positive donor, patient and family outcomes are achieved

Strengthens practice, builds strong relationships and develops partnerships to improve donor, patient and family outcomes on the unit

Exemplary Professional Practice and Empirical Outcomes Exemplary Professional Practice: The Clinical Nurse applies exceptional professional practice in relationship with patients/donors, families, and the inter-professional team, and understands how new knowledge and evidence is applied.

• Practices evidence-based, quality clinical nursing consistent with current nursing research, the Professional Practice Model, the Nurse Practice Act of the State of Texas, institutional and national practice standards. Adheres to the use of unit's standard operating procedures

• Delivers care using a systematic approach to achieve measurable, outcome focused, patient/donor care; identifies, implements, and evaluates opportunities for improvement

• Communicates and collaborates effectively with leaders, departments, other disciplines, staff members, patients/donors, and families - professionalism competency

• Integrates ethical principles into clinical practice

• Maintains and integrates knowledge of current clinical practice and technological proficiency; provides clinically competent, compassionate, direct donor and patient care consistent with the Professional Practice Model

• Seeks opportunities to broaden knowledge relevant to the Clinical Nurse role and healthcare through engagement in professional organizations and commitment to life- long learning

Empirical Outcomes: The Clinical Nurse is responsible for seeking out and maintaining knowledge regarding relevant empirical outcomes, including the impact of quality improvement initiatives and institutional best practices on the patient population, nursing workforce and institution, as reflected in unit and institutional metrics.

Granulocyte Program The Clinical Nurse will maintain the granulocyte program. This includes daily rounds on each granulocyte patient, ensuring the list of patients in need is up to date, and acting as a liaison between the patient/family, donors, and the health care team. The Clinical Nurse will communicate with the primary team of each patient daily to assess the need for continued granulocyte support and report this information back to the Transfusion Medicine Physicians and other departments. The nurse will also schedule donors in order to ensure that granulocyte needs are met, communicate with Transfusion Services for availability of Granulocyte products and provide support to inter-departmental teams regarding Granulocyte transfusion.

Clinical Operations The Clinical Nurse will work with Physicians, Nurses, and Blood Donor Technicians to provide treatment to patients in need of autologous blood donation and therapeutic phlebotomy. The nurse will ensure that the patient is clinically stable enough to undergo the procedure in conjunction with the patients' primary care team and the Transfusion Medicine Team. They will also monitor the patient during and after such procedures, ensuring they tolerate the procedure well and have no adverse reaction. In the event of an adverse reaction, the nurse will intervene to correct reactions and ensure patient safety.

Clinical Support The clinical nurse will provide their knowledge and critical thinking skills to ensure the safety of the blood supply. The nurse will be available to both fixed site and mobile blood drives to determine if prospective donors are suitable for allogeneic donation, to monitor the safety of donors during donation, and to assess and treat any donation related reactions. Primary nursing tasks will include care for blood donors having adverse reactions; providing donor/patient education; and providing medical information regarding donor eligibility, (physical and medical history analysis). The nurse will also assist with donor advocacy in accordance with current FDA guidelines.

This includes base knowledge of donor infectious testing results and donor deferral letters.

Other duties as assigned

Graduation from an accredited school of professional nursing. All clinical nurses with less than one year of registered nurse (RN) work experience will be required to participate in the Clinical Nurse Residency Program. Current State of Texas Professional Nursing license (RN). Basic Life Support (BLS) or Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) certification. Advanced Cardiac Life Support(ACLS) certification if working in the following department: ASC Post Anesthesia (600761). Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) if working in the following departments: ASC Post Anesthesia (600761) or Pedi - Child & Adolescent Center (113200). It is the policy of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to provide equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by institutional policy or by federal, state or local laws unless such distinction is required by law. http://www.mdanderson.org/about-us/legal-and-policy/legal-statements/eeo-affirmative-action.html