Virginia Mason Medical Center, a leading healthcare provider committed to exceptional patient care in Seattle, WA, is seeking a highly motivated and compassionate RN Navigator to join our dedicated Cardiothoracic department. In this vital role, you will serve as a central point of contact and advocate for our cardiothoracic patients, guiding them and their families through every stage of their treatment journey.
The RN Navigator plays a crucial role in ensuring seamless, individualized, and holistic care, offering expert clinical guidance, education, and unwavering support. If you are a registered nurse with a passion for patient advocacy, interdisciplinary collaboration, and optimizing patient outcomes in a complex and rewarding specialty, we encourage you to apply.
Responsibilities:
Patient Care Coordination & Advocacy:
- Coordinates care for all assigned patients throughout the continuum of care from diagnosis to release from care, ensuring a smooth and comprehensive experience.
- Develops and shares ongoing assessments, establishes patient-centered goals, implements nursing interventions, and meticulously documents patient responses.
- Serves as a consistent support system throughout the patient’s entire course of treatment, fostering trust and rapport.
- Provides empathetic support to patients and families during difficult decision-making periods, empowering them to make informed treatment choices.
- Advocates tirelessly for the patient and family in decision-making discussions, meticulously preserving and protecting patient autonomy, dignity, rights, and cultural beliefs.
- Provides essential education, psychosocial support, and logistical guidance to enhance patient preparedness for treatment and streamline transitions across care pathways.
- Proactively determines and assesses personal needs/concerns, helping patients and families to fully understand treatment options and the profound implications of their diagnosis.
- Identifies actual and/or potential problems/concerns, intervening in a timely and appropriate manner to mitigate challenges.
- Efficiently coordinates tests and other procedures, ensuring they are timely and cause as few interruptions to the patient’s life as possible.
- Provides comprehensive follow-up for further diagnostic work-up, education, and support to promote effective coping for both the patient and their family.
- Maintains ongoing communication with patients to consistently check their progress throughout the course of their experience, ensuring their needs are continually being met.
- Attends and actively participates in hospital patient rounds with physicians and/or the multi-disciplinary team, contributing valuable insights to patient care plans.
Education & Resource Provision:
- Continually assesses the educational needs of patients, families, healthcare providers, and the wider community.
- Initiates and diligently documents patient teaching, collaborating with all available resources to provide comprehensive information that patients and their families need and desire.
- Responds promptly and accurately to patient requests for information regarding the disease process, treatment plans/options, and expected side effects/outcomes of treatment.
- Develops high-quality educational materials using current literature and other credible resources, making them readily available to patients and healthcare providers/staff.
- May plan and lead classes to effectively meet patient educational needs.
Collaboration & Holistic Care Planning:
- Consults and collaborates extensively with other providers to comprehensively meet the medical, social, and financial needs of patients.
- Formulates an individualized, holistic care plan for patients based on evidence-based research, constantly evaluating the general management of patients and their response to nursing interventions and multi-disciplinary treatment plans.
- Communicates and collaborates effectively with physicians involved in the patient’s care, ensuring a cohesive and coordinated approach.
- Consults with physicians/providers who require assistance with the care of their patients, particularly related to continuity of care, coordination of care, education, and available resource services.
- Contacts and interacts with external services/support groups when appropriate to effectively fulfill patient needs.
- Refers patients to appropriate internal and external resources/professionals, coordinating these crucial resources and consultative services to provide seamless continuity of care and an appropriate follow-up plan of care.
- May provide advocacy assistance with complex insurance and/or financial issues, alleviating patient burden.
- Facilitates the development, implementation, and adherence to clinical and research guidelines to ensure optimal clinical outcomes.
- Works closely with the care team to assure direct care needs are met, assisting as needed or assigned.
- Ensures meticulous follow-up on identified patient clinical and non-clinical care, facilitating effective communication and compliance to care plans (e.g., medication reconciliation, follow-up on trigger points, patient care conferences, etc.).
- Consults with physicians, professional nursing staff, and ancillary members of the patient care team in determining nursing care/treatment plans/case management and to proactively address clinical practice issues and changes.
Data Tracking, Evaluation & Quality Improvement:
- Provides accurate and timely data tracking, management, evaluation, and reporting of clinical/treatment protocols/practices through ongoing observation and analysis of current activities.
- Contributes actively to an environment of continuous quality and process improvement.
- Ensures accurate and timely data collection and entry into the patient database as indicated by department guidelines.
- Identifies patterns of variance from standardized practices guidelines and recommends effective strategies to resolve them.
- Tracks and evaluates interventions and outcomes, demonstrating a commitment to evidence-based practice.
- Provides continuing assistance to management with respect to the implementation and ongoing maintenance of policies, standards, procedures, and automated tools that support CHI-FH goals and department-specific objectives/initiatives.
- Assists with the monitoring of patient outcomes, audits, and evaluates results achieved in relation to objectives.
- Participates in the development, evaluation, and serves as a department representative on cross-functional and interdisciplinary teams as assigned.
Operational & Research Support:
- Provides operational support and contributes to clinical research activities conducted by the department.
- Assesses daily patient schedule, nurse staffing requirements, and available resources in accordance with established standards/guidelines.
- May revise work schedules to ensure adequate staff coverage when necessary.
- Coordinates clinical research activities conducted by the department, ensuring accuracy and compliance.
Cultural Competence & Population-Specific Care:
- Demonstrates proper use of communication tools/materials for effective communication and understands how the culture(s) of patient populations can profoundly affect communication, collaboration, and the provision of care, treatment, and services.
- Demonstrates comprehensive knowledge and proper skills associated with the department’s defined specific patient populations served, ensuring culturally sensitive and individualized care.
Performs related duties as required.
