Registered Nurse; RN –Patient Command Center Day Shift

Major Responsibilities

• Provides ongoing assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation of customer needs to enable proactive planning of admissions, discharges and transfers.
• Performs review of potential admissions (ED, Direct, Procedural, or Transfers between facilities) to match the health care needs of the individual patient with the most appropriate level of care or services.
• Collaborates with members of the health care team, including the Attending Physician and transferring facility, regarding medical criteria for admission and the most appropriate level of care to meet the health care needs of the patient based on accepted medical necessity criteria, standards, evidence-based practice, and current research.
• Assists the Physician in identifying alternatives to admission and appropriate referrals for patients that do not require acute care services, as appropriate. Refers to a Physician Advisor for denials and cases that do not meet medical necessity criteria. Utilization of Chain of Command.
• Patient and bed management data is accurately maintained, used for trending, and used to guide planning.
• Participates in efforts to reduce risk and improve patient safety.
• Able to critically /analytically think and process information in a high pressure environment. Demonstrates adaptive communication styles based upon needs of individual situation.
• Establishes and maintains positive customer relationships with all internal and external clients. Responds to and resolves customer complaints in a timely fashion utilizing service recovery strategies. Addresses problems and conflicts which arise between patients, families and health care providers.
• Facilitates and coordinates assignment of the patient to the most appropriate bed.
• Maintains an overview of capacity within Advocate Health Care at all times, matching bed requests with available resources, based on unit specific criteria, to maximize appropriate utilization of resources.
• Anticipates bed needs and creates a plan for assignment of patients to appropriate beds by comparing available beds with the surgery and cath lab schedules, and anticipated admissions from the ED, Physician Offices, and other facilities.
• Works collaboratively with multiple departments (ED, surgery, PACU, cath lab, and Nursing) in facilitating patient throughput.
• Utilizes available resources to make informed decisions regarding bed placement (Leadership, Infection Control) and incorporates infection control guidelines in bed assignment decisions. Remains in constant communication with the bed management support staff providing oversight and guidance regarding bed assignment decisions and other functions.
• Oversees and drives the bed management process through actively and regularly rounding on units, collaborating with the Unit Staff regarding discharges, admissions, and placement of patients to the most appropriate bed in a timely manner.
• Maintain authority to compel nursing units to accept new patients and explain clinical reasoning and operational constraints behind placement decisions while demonstrating diverse clinical knowledge regarding patient care needs and the knowledge of the scope of services offered on each patient care unit.
• Assess, in collaboration with physicians and charge nurses, level of care for patients in ICU, telemetry and step-down who can be moved to medical/surgical units if patients with higher acuity are admitted. Establish and identify a code bed.
• Communicates bed flow status and census to leadership. Follows protocol for initiating bed management protocol and mobilizing resources to resolve disruptions in patient throughput. Collaborates with ED charge nurses and leadership to facilitate throughput and minimize boarding of patients.
• Responsible for the management of an electronic bed board and reservation process that includes scheduled and unscheduled admissions, discharges and transfers.
• Provides education to the members of the health care team relating to admission criteria and patient placement guidelines.
• Applies admission criteria to all potential admitted patients to assess the appropriateness of the requested admission for severity of illness in relation to the intensity of services to evaluate for proper admission status.
• Ensures appropriate hospital utilization in accordance with Health and Human Service regulations, payment class requirements and accreditation standards of Accrediting Organizations.
• Participates in performance improvement activities.
• Documents activities of the bed management program, including entering admissions, internal and external transfers, pre-arrival and consult call data in designated computer software systems.
• Utilizes evidence based practice to drive improvement strategies.
• Collaborates with other leaders and team members to ensure operational efficiency of patient throughput and positive patient outcomes.
• Understands departmental and organizational productivity measures; assesses productivity and recommends resource adjustments as…