Occupational Therapist (OT) Acute Care

Vanderbilt University Medical Center•Clarksville, TN

5d•Onsite

About The Position

Vanderbilt Clarksville Hospital is seeking an Occupational Therapist to join their collaborative inpatient rehabilitation team. This role is approximately 90% Acute Care and 10% Inpatient Rehabilitation, serving adult patients across a variety of hospital settings. As an Occupational Therapist, you will help patients regain independence, improve function, and prepare for safe discharge through evidence-based, patient-centered care. You'll work closely with physicians, nurses, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, and case managers to support optimal outcomes. Patient Population: Occupational Therapists provide care throughout the hospital, including: Medical-Surgical Units Progressive Care/Step-Down Units Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Orthopedic and General Surgery Patients Medically Complex Adult Populations Inpatient Rehabilitation

Requirements

Graduate of an accredited Occupational Therapy program.
Current Tennessee Occupational Therapist license or eligibility for licensure.
Current BLS certification or ability to obtain within the required timeframe.
Relevant Work Experience
Bachelor's

Nice To Haves

Acute care or hospital-based Occupational Therapy experience.
Strong clinical reasoning, communication, and teamwork skills.

Responsibilities

Evaluate patients and develop individualized treatment plans.
Provide interventions focused on activities of daily living, cognition, upper extremity function, safety, and functional independence.
Collaborate with interdisciplinary teams to support patient recovery and discharge planning.
Educate patients and caregivers on adaptive strategies and equipment recommendations.
Maintain timely and accurate documentation in accordance with hospital standards.
Provides activity therapy assessments and occupational therapy assessments, written treatment and discharge plans
Attends and participates in designated treatment team meetings
Plans and conducts daily activity therapy group sessions and programs, with individual therapy sessions as needed
Completes appropriate documentation
Participates in program Performance Improvement process
Demonstrates mastery in communicating functional impact of assessment findings, treatment interventions, treatment planning diagnosis, and disease process. Able to adapt communication to needs/level of understanding of audience and share appropriate information/literature. May supervise, educate and train students from professional programs of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and athletic training and/or students and staff from other departments. Contributes in the development of patient education best practices for the organization.
Demonstrates proficiency in documentation practices. Documents in the appropriate templates and utilizes only approved abbreviations within patient documentation. Meets institutional standards for quality and timeliness of documentation. May complete accurate chart audits of co-workers in the same classification category
Demonstrates mastery in evaluating patients with physical deficits including impairments, developmental disabilities, functional limitations, disabilities, or changes in physical function by obtaining information pertinent to the assessment and administering and scoring standardized tests and objective measures of deficit areas. Selects appropriate measures and performs a functional assessment to document patient's status requiring skilled therapy. Interprets the results of the assessment and their significance to the patient, family, referring physician and other members of the health care team. Demonstrates experience in clinical evaluation skills and may serve as a mentor for other clinical staff to develop their skills in evaluation techniques. Contributes to the development of best practices for the organization. May consult with team members to implement new procedures.
Demonstrates mastery in providing treatment consistent with physician prescription and established plan of care. Able to modify treatment plan as needed to demonstrate provision of skilled therapy services including progression of treatment throughout course of care, and revision of treatment interventions of goals not met. Supervises and directs certified athletic trainers (PT only), physical therapist / occupational therapist assistants, technicians and volunteers and students. Selects and follows correct protocol for care, as established, and actively seek out, utilize and mentor/teach others on current evidence based treatment strategies. May consult with team members to offer suggestions for treatment strategies. May serve as a clinical content expert for practice area, initiates consultation with team members for advanced treatment of patients, develop forum for staff members to utilize clinical expertise.
Demonstrates mastery in developing a plan of care that incorporates treatment interventions focused on meeting objective goals. Develops and documents patient focused short and long term goals that are functional and measurable. Identifies the need for and referral to other services, as needed. May serve as a mentor for other clinical staff to develop their skills in treatment planning. May consult with team members or implement new procedures.