Professional Development Specialist, Acute Care & ICU - Full time
About The Position
The Professional Development Specialist serves as an advanced Nurse Professional Development (NPD) practitioner accountable for designing, standardizing, and evaluating system-wide educational strategies, programs, and competency frameworks. The role leads the development and operationalization of education governance to promote consistency, quality, regulatory compliance, and efficient use of resources across the organization. Working with leaders, subject matter experts, frontline educators, and other stakeholders, the Specialist translates organizational priorities into scalable learning and workforce development solutions intended to improve clinical quality, patient safety, workforce readiness, and staff retention while reducing variation, duplication, and costs associated with onboarding inefficiencies, turnover, and regulatory risk. At a systems level, the Specialist drives innovation and leads large-scale workforce and practice initiatives that standardize onboarding, competency validation, and professional development. The role uses data to evaluate educational initiatives against organizational, clinical, and workforce outcomes, including time-to-productivity, competency compliance, and retention, and leads continuous improvement to support high-reliability care and operational efficiency.
Requirements
- Master’s degree in nursing or a related field.
- At least 5 years of recent clinical, educational, or nursing leadership experience.
- Basic Life Support (BLS) certification.
- Must be licensed or eligible to practice pending licensure as a Registered Nurse in Virginia with a multi-state license, or in West Virginia with a multi-state license, in accordance with applicable Board of Nursing regulations.
- Nursing Professional Development Board Certification (NPD-BC) is required within 18 months of hire.
Nice To Haves
- At least 3 years of NPD or nursing education experience.
- Nursing Professional Development Board Certification (NPD-BC) at the time of hire.
Responsibilities
- Lead development and sustainment of system-wide education strategies, frameworks, and governance structures.
- Define and maintain standardized educational models, curricula, and competency frameworks.
- Establish and enforce instructional design, delivery, and evaluation standards.
- Partner with executive and clinical leadership to identify enterprise learning needs and create strategic education plans aligned with workforce and financial objectives.
- Collaborate with educators, leaders, and frontline staff to develop education content and programs that meet organizational standards and diverse practice needs.
- Facilitate effective and efficient education and development delivery across the health system.
- Design, implement, and continuously improve system-level programs, including onboarding, transition to practice, competency validation, leadership development, and specialty pathways.
- Develop and maintain standardized educational content, tools, and resources.
- Ensure educational programming aligns with regulatory, accreditation, and professional standards.
- Provide system-level oversight of competency programs and align them with clinical practice standards, organizational priorities, and regulatory requirements.
- Standardize initial and ongoing competency validation, assessment, and documentation processes.
- Integrate clinical judgment, critical thinking, and evidence-based practice into competency frameworks.
- Establish and monitor key performance indicators and dashboards to assess effectiveness, identify gaps, and support data-informed decisions.
- Apply quality improvement and change management methods to reduce variation, improve efficiency, and sustain practice change.
- Evaluate educational initiatives using metrics that include clinical quality and patient safety, time-to-productivity and onboarding efficiency, staff retention and workforce stability, competency compliance, and regulatory readiness.
- Function as a system-level NPD leader, change agent, consultant, and educator.
- Lead or contribute to system-wide committees, councils, and governance structures.
- Maintain knowledge of trends, emerging evidence, and best practices in nursing professional development and healthcare education.
- Contribute to the profession through program innovation, scholarship, presentations, or dissemination of best practices.
Benefits
- Zero-deductible health plan
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Generous paid time off
- Tuition assistance
- Retirement savings match
- Employee Assistance Program
- Healthy U incentive-based wellness program
- Health savings account
- Flexible spending account for childcare
- Life insurance
- Short-term and long-term disability
- Professional development
- Discounts to on-campus dining
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
