POSITION SUMMARY:

The Surgical Clinical Nurse Reviewer Quality Specialist will abstract and submit data to the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) and Endocarditis database through high-quality screening, patient tracking, data compilation, documentation and data entry.  This position will be responsible for the coordination and completion of Clinical Quality and Patient Safety projects for the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery utilizing STS and Endocarditis data. This position works closely with the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery to provide leadership for system-wide efforts and special projects focusing on standardization, evidence based practice and continuously improving clinical outcomes.

Position: QI Project Specialist-Surgical Clinical Nurse Reviewer

Department: Cardiac & Thoracic

Schedule: Full Time, 40 hours

ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES / DUTIES:

• Responsible for the identification of surgical patients for inclusion in the program registry through the application of strict program inclusion/exclusion criteria and randomization protocol.
• Responsible for the collection of pre-operative, operative, and postoperative data components through the effective utilization of the hospital health information system.
• Attends Morbidity & Mortality conferences to ensure reliable data collection of postoperative occurrences.
• Responsible for identifying areas for streamlining and process improvement in the data collection process.
• Demonstrates appropriate utilization of resources necessary to obtain valid, reliable data for entry into the Program.
• Responsible for utilizing hospital software applications for data collection and analysis.
• Responsible for the accurate and timely entry of data into the program’s website and assuring the transmission of completed data.
• Responsible for reviewing weekly site accrual report on the website and responding to accrual report alerts.
• Establishes effective working relationships with members of the hospital community, especially staff in the Surgery, Medicine, Nursing, Health Information Management and Information Technology departments.
• Contacts patients and/or families via telephone and/or written communications post-operatively for the purpose of identifying possible occurrences associated with surgical procedures performed at the hospital.
• Serves as educational resource on the STS and Endocarditis database for internal and external audiences by developing educational material and delivering presentations.
• Successfully completes the STS and Endocarditis Training/Certification Program.
• Attends the annual national conferences pertaining to the program.
• Utilizes hospital’s behavioral standards as the basis for decision making and to support the hospital’s mission and goals.
• Follows established hospital infection control and safety procedures.
• Key liaison to all healthcare services, nursing, clinical, and administrative departments, surgeons and committees throughout BMC. The SCR/QI specialist works with all constituencies to understand their needs and to develop a strategy to improve the quality, safety and value
• In conjunction with the Director, foster integration of quality improvement efforts with health professions education and research.
• Facilitate the integrations of traditional efforts to improve clinical quality (e.g. patient safety, risk management, regulatory compliance) with modern concepts of quality improvement to create a premier, data driven quality improvement program that involves all surgical specialties.
• Assist in the identification and development of appropriate process and outcome measures to support BMC Surgery quality improvement plan.
• Support and when necessary, oversee, redesign of surgery patient care surgery service by multi-disciplinary teams that aim to improve quality, safety and outcomes.
• Support efforts to collect, analyze and routinely report quality, safety, efficiency and other metrics to appropriate constituencies across BMC
• Maintain currency with the state of the art in quality improvement and patient safety in health care.
• Actively participate in the development of a culture of safety and improvement.
• Participate in other improvement projects as assigned by the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery.
• Performs other duties as assigned or as needed.

Must adhere to all of BMC’s RESPECT behavioral standards.

(The above statements in this job description are intended to depict the general nature and level of work assigned to the employee(s) in this job.  The above is not intended to represent an exhaustive list of accountable duties and responsibilities required).

JOB REQUIREMENTS

EDUCATION:

• Graduate of an accredited school of nursing, Nurse Practitioner or;
• Physician Assistant program

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS REQUIRED:

• Licensed in Massachusetts as a registered nurse, BSN or Master’s degree or;
• PA - APP

EXPERIENCE:

• Minimum three (3) years’ experience in either: inpatient surgical nursing, ER, Trauma center, or related clinical experience with clinical data bases required. 
• Quality improvement, patient safety or clinical chart review and abstraction experience preferred.
• Related clinical background with experience working with cardiac or cardiology databases preferred.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS:

• Clinical chart review and abstraction experience required.
• Computer and Internet skills and experience required—familiarity and comfort with MS Office products is essential (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access).
• Database data management experience preferred.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Disabled/Veterans