RN Charge Nurse Sub Acute

Where You'll Work

Founded in 1910, Dignity Health - Community Hospital of San Bernardino is a 347-bed, acute care, nonprofit, community hospital located in San Bernardino, California. Known for its programs in maternity care and pediatrics, behavioral health and long-term subacute care for adults and children, the hospital also includes inpatient and outpatient surgery. The hospital shares a legacy of humankindness with Dignity Health, one of the nation's five largest health care systems. Visit here for more information.

One Community. One Mission. One California

Job Summary and Responsibilities

As a Charge Nurse, you'll oversee a department of frontline nurses caring for patients. Your previous experience in acute care, LTC, or nursing homes adds tremendous value to our nursing team.

Every day you will advocate for your fellow nurses as you support them in reaching their full potential, which aligns with your department's operational goals and objectives.

To thrive in this role, you need to be accountable and confident. You're an excellent communicator in 1 : 1 interactions and in front of groups. It's also important for you to be comfortable holding tough conversations, as you are responsible for the performance of your people and your unit.

• Review staff documentation for appropriate and measurable patient goals, interventions and outcomes and provides feedback to staff and Nurse Manager.
• Provide colleagues with consistent, constructive, positive and negative feedback.
• Provides feedback on a consistent basis to Ns Mgr. regarding staff nurses performance.
• Effectively utilizes the Ns Mgr. in situations where resolution of issue exceeds authority.
• Proactively identifies and addresses issues by initiating interactions with the affected Health Team Member (s) as evidenced by resolution of the issues and / or communication to the Ns Mgr.
• Complete evaluations for personnel on assigned shift.
• Complete all assessments, admissions, transfers, shift assessments and discharge assessments within the time frames established by hospital policy.
• Reassesses patient status as indicated.
• Identify psycho-social, spiritual, cultural, learning needs and discharge planning.
• Identifies predictable patient problems, life threatening situations, low volume / high risk patient problems, and anticipates less predictable patient problems and initiates appropriate interventions.
• Recognizes the relationship between physiological and environmental factors and their affect on the patient / family.
• Identifies current patient / family coping mechanisms, support systems and their effectiveness.
• Identifies need for other resources to assist in the assessment of needs.
• Incorporates advanced and / or specialized nursing path physiology and assessment skills into clinical practice.
• Demonstrates ability to assess multisystem failure and / or instability during complicated intervention and therapy.
• Identifies the inter-relationship between data, patient behavior and symptoms.
• Initiates patient's plan of care using assessment data.
• Determines and prioritizes nursing diagnosis, expected outcomes and discharge planning.
• Plan of care demonstrates knowledge of age specific needs, conditions, and measurable interventions including diagnostic process and expected diagnostic values for high volume cases.
• Updates the plan of care, which includes input from patient / family and / or significant other.
• Integrates the medical plan of care in the patient's plan of care.
• Utilizes existing standards of care in formulating plans.
• Plan of care includes collaboration and / or consultation with other members of the health care team.
• Effectively communicates plan of care to other staff members.
• Anticipates potential problems for high risk, problem prone or low volume cases and documents plan of care.
• Provides basic patient care reflective of age specific needs and implements physician's orders for high-volume diagnosis.
• Administers and controls narcotics and medications including parenterals and blood components consistent with established plan of care and implemented in a safe appropriate and documented manner.
• Utilizes appropriate resources.
• Identifies drug interactions.
• Demonstrates knowledge of antidotes / treatments for medication overdose and infiltrations.
• Maintains current knowledge of new and infrequently used medications related to area of practice.
• Takes charge of emergency, life threatening situations.
• Documents nursing interventions, patient response, treatment modalities, effectiveness in approved documentation format and communicates information to physicians and coworkers in a timely manner.
• Responds appropriately to usual and abnormal diagnostic data and documents interventions.
• Implements and instructs patients, families, or significant others about the illness, management of the illness and care after discharge using resources and referrals as necessary.
• Identifies and implements alternative interventions to achieve expected outcomes. Involves and solicits feedback from patient and / or significant other.
• Coordinates discharge process, actively follows-up referrals and documents.
• Recognizes subtle changes and trends and identifies abnormal deviations in vital signs. Interprets these with respect to the patient's condition and takes appropriate action.
• Functions independently and acts as a resource person.
• Suggests appropriate interventions for abnormal vital signs or other clinical problems, utilizing clinical assessment of the patient.
• Makes recommendations to improve patients response to treatment modalities, e.g., medication changes, ventilation changes, line placement, skin care, wound management, nutritional needs, activity level, Etc.
• Independently assesses patient learning needs and seeks assistance in identifying / meeting complex learning needs of patients and families.
• Identifies complex learning needs of patients and families.
• Incorporates teaching into the plan of care and performs the teaching for routine patient problems.
• Functions as a resource in assisting others to identify learning needs and teaching strategies for patient, family and / or significant other and teaches others involved in the care of the patient and family with complex problems.
• Evaluates the teaching plan, revises in relation to patient and / or family response and patient outcomes and documents appropriately.
• Evaluates the effectiveness of interventions based on the plan of care and expected outcomes.
• Makes patient rounds and directly observes and evaluates patient care.
• Evaluates the effectiveness of interventions based on psychosocial, cultural, religious and educational influences. Seeks assistance when necessary.
• Functions as a resource for unit personnel and other health care professionals in evaluating the effectiveness of interventions based on psychosocial, cultural, religious and educational influences.
• Evaluates patients, families and / or significant others understanding of care. Seeks feedback and changes or modifies instruction based on the evaluation process.
• Communicates the rationale for nursing interventions to staff.
• Teaches staff using a variety of teaching strategies.
• Acts as an educational resource to other units in addition to assigned unit at least annually.

Job Requirements

Required