Infection Control Specialist - Registered Nurse (RN) - Safety Sensitive in Batesville, Arkansas at White River Medical Center (Health System)

Job Summary:
Position is responsible for, implementing, coordinating and evaluating infection prevention strategies. Responsibilities include developing and maintaining strong relationships with hospital staff to deliver high quality care. This position is accountable for those functions, which enhance the prevention of infectious or hospital acquired conditions through such activities as education, quality improvement activities, patient evaluation and triage, and patient and family consultation and counseling. This position is responsible for promoting high quality, cost-effective care within the realm of infection prevention.

Job Duties:

• Monitors the prevention processes of all hospital acquired conditions and creates actions plans to implement changes in processes based upon changes and updates to evidence based practice.
• Promotes an interdisciplinary approach to infection prevention within the hospital setting.
• Maintains an ongoing line of communication between employees and leadership regarding infection prevention opportunities.
• Supports all hospital staff and clinic staff as a clinical resource for providing information regarding infectious diseases, precautions, and prevention strategies against the transmission of infectious processes.
• Consults with hospital and clinic leadership to provide action plans to improve infection prevention processes and direct educational efforts to reduce infection risks.
• Stays abreast of trends in infection prevention and makes recommendations to practice changes as appropriate to promote quality.
• Demonstrates clinical competency in appropriate nursing areas of applied knowledge, skills, standards, clinical and ethical decision-making
• Monitors and maintains compliance with State/Federal licensing and regulatory requirements, Medicare Conditions of Participation, as well as other applicable reimbursement requirements for the hospital setting.
• Collaborates with hospital leadership on the design and presentation of educational/orientation programs and materials relating to various infection prevention processes.
• Collaborates with other team members to participate/coordinate patient/family education and support programs that assist in prevention of infectious disease processes.
• Assists managers, supervisor, hospital staff, to identify and develop strategies to address discrepancies in performance to prevent hospital acquired infections.
• Collects and analyzes performance improvement and outcome data in collaboration with other identified members of the quality department to identify improvement opportunities.
• Applies epidemiological principles, including activities directed at improving patient outcomes in the healthcare setting.
• Acts as a consultant to provide an infection risk assessment, prevention, and control strategies; includes activities related to occupational health, construction, and disaster planning.
• Is aware of and works within hospital and in the clinic division with departmental safety guidelines, including reporting potential hazards and hazardous behavior.
• Leads the infection prevention committee to present quality updates, product evaluation, and provision of high-quality services in a cost-effective manner.
• Investigates, determines a timeline, coordinates, and leads the apparent cause analysis review committee following the development of a hospital acquired condition
• Monitors compliance and collaborates for interdisciplinary action planning to meet CIHQ regulations both in the acute and post-acute setting.
• Monitors through reoccurring, monthly and quarterly rounding in the clinic setting to ensure infection prevention standards are being followed.
• Collaborates with leaders in the clinic division to create action plans to assure compliance with regulatory measures are met and maintained.
• Other duties as assigned by supervision

Qualifications: Insert applicable data into the 3 categories. This is where you should list a summary of the desired & required qualifications. Include certification and/or licensure when appropriate.

Essentials: