Registered Nurse (Surgical Nurse Patient Navigator/Patient Educator)

The Nurse Navigator is a registered professional nurse with care coordination and clinical responsibly in their assigned section. Executes leadership and continuous responsibility and accountability for population groups and/or integrated programs that cross services, influences organizational mission and health care, and responsibility for outcomes. The focus of the individual's performance encompasses a combination of clinical, administrative, educational and research tasks.

Albuquerque is a gem of the Southwest that boasts relatively mild climate year-round, a vast array of outdoor activities including golfing, snow skiing, hiking, and bicycling. Albuquerque is home to largest hot air balloon event in the U.S., the annual Balloon Fiesta, due to its ideal climate and wind patterns. Albuquerque also boasts a growing film industry, art scene, and has many resorts and casinos to enjoy.

VA offers a comprehensive total rewards package: VA Nurse Total Rewards

The Nurse Navigator will use advanced clinical knowledge/judgment to promote staff involvement in planning, decision-making and evaluating outcomes and will function as an expert in clinical practice, systematically evaluating current practice and formulating appropriate outcomes for patient groups and/or organizational processes in their assigned setting. Guides, develops and supports staff from a care coordination perspective and collaborates with other clinicians to plan, provide and evaluate care that promotes wellness and prevents disease injury and disability. The Nurse Navigator will use professional standards of care, scientific evidence and practice to evaluate programs and/or services provided within their assigned section.

The function of the Registered Nurse, Surgical Nurse Patient Navigator/Patient Educator is to provide, direct, and supervise the delivery of quality nursing care to Veteran patients in the Surgical Specialty Clinics located within Surgery Service. The Surgical Nurse Patient Navigator/Patient Educator will manage care for the surgical patients from the point of decision for surgery through to the postoperative care phase. Assessing, educating, scheduling consults, evaluating readiness for surgery, coordinating the multidisciplinary process required to ready the complex Veteran patient for surgery, tracking the progress towards readiness for surgery, and ensuring that no patients are lost in the system. The individual will manage the OR schedule for appropriateness of case type, length of cases, and number of complex cases scheduled, availability of support staff, and special equipment needs.

The individual will work collaboratively with all Patient Care Services within the medical center and its affiliating CBOCs to assure the most efficient, and best possible care is delivered to the Veteran. The individual will serve as a DSS super user/scheduler to enter the surgical request into both VISTA and DSS, and will collaborate with the primary Operating Room Scheduler to coordinate any surgery related changes or updates.

This individual will work to build and maintain a comprehensive surgical patient education library to include electronic and paper based material detailing diagnosis related information, all perioperative phases of surgery, and discharge instructions. The individual will work to build and maintain a Veteran friendly Surgical Service Patient Education Website, and work with newly available VA perioperative smartphone APPS to enroll Veterans into the surgical type appropriate APP program. The individual will participate in Surgical Service new and ongoing innovation projects and work to improve access, efficiency, safety, communication, and overall care for Veteran patients.

Pay: Competitive salary, regular salary increases, potential for performance awards
Paid Time Off: 50 days of paid time off per year (26 days of annual leave, 13 days of sick leave, 11 paid Federal holidays per year)
Retirement: Traditional federal pension (5 years vesting) and federal 401K with up to 5% in contributions by VA
Insurance: Federal health/vision/dental/term life/long-term care (many federal insurance programs can be carried into retirement)
Licensure: 1 full and unrestricted license from any US State or territory

Work Schedule: Monday thru Friday 7:00am - 3:30pm.
Telework: Not Available.
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized.
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized.
Financial Disclosure Report: Not required.