Clinical Nurse Specialist

**Job purpose** The Clinical Nurse Specialist owns clinical education, clinical staff competency, and the advancement of professional practice across a region of Avem-managed entities. The role exists to develop, empower, and enable direct-care clinicians (to include all clinical positions, i.e. lab, respiratory, radiology, therapy, etc.) to define, monitor, and improve the standards of their practice, and to ensure those clinicians have the education, competency, and structure to do so. The incumbent contributes to the advancement of clinical practice by reviewing and conducting research and evidence-based practice and translating those findings into clinical practice. **Essential functions include but are not limited to:** **Specialty clinical expertise & direct care** - Coach and develop direct-care clinicians in real time through rounding, demonstrating, and problem-solving alongside staff so expertise transfers into everyday practice. - Assess clinical practice and care processes directly to identify gaps, risks to quality, and opportunities to improve patient outcomes, then act on what those assessments reveal. **Advancing professional practice & bedside ownership** - Facilitate growth and development of Avem professional practice councils, building them into clinician-led bodies where direct-care staff define, monitor, and improve the standards of their own practice. - Develop, empower, and enable clinicians to lead by facilitating effective meetings, coaching council members, and equipping councils with the data and evidence to evaluate practice against the standard of excellence in their discipline. - Drive professional practice across all sites and carry practice questions and decisions from the bedside, then translate those decisions into education, competency, and practice change. - Establish and sustain a clinical peer review process for Avem-managed facilities. - Mentor clinicians and serve as a change agent and champion for scientific inquiry, embedding a spirit of inquiry and best practice evidence into how clinicians make practice decisions. **Owning clinical education & clinical staff competency** - In collaboration with facility CNOs and managers, own the full clinical education program across all Avem-managed entities within a region to include needs assessment, session planning, objective writing, design, delivery, and evaluation, all built on adult learning principles. - Develop, deliver, and continually strengthen the preceptor program, redesigning it as needed to meet learning objectives and the realities of practice. - Own competency-based initial and annual training, including online modules, simulations, and in-person hands-on skills fairs—and determine where competencies must evolve based on direct observation of practice, expert input, peer review findings, and emerging evidence. - Build and deliver clinical certification and life support training (BLS, ACLS, PALS and related). - Serve as a clinical subject matter expert for the electronic health record (EHR), partnering with Information Technology and Informatics to resolve clinical system learning needs. **Research, evidence-based practice & systems advancement** - Contribute to the advancement of clinical practice in rural health by reviewing and conducting research and evidence-based practice and translating those findings into clinical practice across the organization. - Lead clinicians in planning, implementing, and evaluating evidence-based practice and quality improvement initiatives, and disseminate results so successful change spreads across the managed entities. - Act as a system change expert, evaluating the impact of new products, technologies, and care models on clinical practice and outcomes, and guiding their adoption. - Own the memorandums of agreement governing college and university clinical rotations, serving as the single point of accountability for academic partnerships. - Partner with stakeholders to set the goals and object…