Clinical Nurse Specialist

UK St. Claire • Morehead, KS

2d

About The Position

The Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) provides staff-development expertise as an educator, quality-improvement consultant, facilitator, change agent, leader, and researcher in inpatient care settings. The CNS promotes high-quality outcomes and innovative practice in accordance with the Kentucky Nursing Practice Act and hospital policies. The role supports bedside nurses and fosters empowerment through knowledge and evidence-based nursing practice. The CNS facilitates educational processes including competency assessment, continuing education, and leadership development, and is accountable for the quality of nursing services delivered by self or others under their direction through participation in quality-assurance and performance-improvement initiatives.

In managing patient care, the CNS takes a leadership role in coordinating the interdisciplinary team and collaborating with other health team members to enhance patient outcomes. As a role model of professional behavior, the CNS helps create a professional nursing climate within UK St. Claire. The CNS reports to the Nursing Director of the Service Line, with a dotted-line reporting relationship to the Director of Nursing Education.

Requirements

• Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS), Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), APRN, or Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) qualification required.
• At least 3 years of bedside nursing experience required.
• Current Kentucky RN license or valid multistate RN license recognized by Kentucky required.
• BLS, ACLS, PALS, and other applicable certifications required based on assigned clinical area or patient population.

Nice To Haves

• At least 1 year of experience as a clinical educator or nursing instructor preferred.
• Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) certification preferred.

Responsibilities

• Conduct needs assessments and analyze clinical, quality, and performance data to identify educational, competency, and practice gaps.
• Plan, develop, implement, and evaluate evidence-based educational programs using adult learning principles and strategies appropriate to learners and clinical environments.
• Coordinate nursing orientation, onboarding, continuing education, competency validation, remediation, certification, nurse residency, and other professional-development activities.
• Develop and maintain educational materials and resources supporting patient-population-specific care, leadership development, clinical competency, and safe nursing practice.
• Provide education, consultation, mentoring, and individualized learning support to nurses throughout their professional development.
• Lead and support quality-improvement and patient-safety initiatives through data analysis, clinical audits, gap assessments, root-cause evaluation, and monitoring of practice standards.
• Collaborate with nursing leadership, physicians, infection prevention, quality improvement, and other healthcare professionals to address educational, clinical, regulatory, and patient-care needs.
• Translate research and best evidence into clinical practice, educational programming, policies, procedures, protocols, and practice guidelines.
• Support the development, implementation, and evaluation of clinical standards, policies, procedures, and practice changes to improve quality, safety, and patient outcomes.
• Serve as a nursing professional-development and clinical-practice resource to staff, leaders, committees, task forces, councils, and interdisciplinary teams.
• Support shared governance, professional practice, frontline staff engagement, leadership development, and unit-based quality-improvement activities.
• Coordinate and support educational and regulatory requirements, including continuing education, clinical affiliations, life-support training, and applicable accreditation and regulatory standards.
• Participate in and/or lead committees, work groups, departmental initiatives, research activities, and projects related to nursing education, professional practice, quality, and patient safety.
• Demonstrate advanced clinical knowledge, effective interdisciplinary communication, ethical practice, lifelong learning, and professional role modeling.
• Maintain required educational and clinical competencies, promote a safe and healthy work environment, support departmental operations and leadership as needed, and perform related duties as assigned.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level