Duties

The Registered Nurse-Chief Nursing Informatics Officer (CNIO) at the Central Virginia VA Healthcare Center serves as the primary advisor to nursing and other facility leadership officials to achieve standardization of best practices across facilities in alignment with High Reliability Organization (HRO) principles. The CNIO reports to the Chief Health Informatics Officer (CHIO) as well as the Associate Director for Patient Care Services (ADPCS) and leads a functional unit of nursing informaticists within the Clinical Informatics Service, under the office of the Chief of Staff. The CNIO demonstrates transformational leadership skills, characterized by substantial and continuous responsibility and accountability, for an integrated inter-professional program that contributes to a complex healthcare system through documented outcome measurement.

The CNIO is responsible for providing leadership in the development and use of informatics solutions and technology to support all nursing domains using an inter-professional methodology. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the oversight of nursing informatics practice by establishing effective and efficient clinical and administrative systems, designing meaningful decision support systems, managing calculated risks and associated mitigation strategies, and fostering lifelong nursing informatics domain knowledge and information that supports evidence-based practice, quality improvements, and research. This position provides leadership in designated projects and cross-coverage with other informaticists in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The complexity of responsibilities is significant and supports the principles of a continuous learning health system. The CNIO fosters leadership and professionalism by providing communication that supports building internal and external agency coalitions creates alignments for nursing informatics best practices and leads clinical and health informatics initiatives and innovation across the enterprise.

Duties include, but are not limited to :

-Collaborates with healthcare executives to build coalitions to support the organizations' mission and vision. Directs the integration of evidence-based practice, clinical practice models, integrated health practices and related activities in the mutual development and achievement of organizational goals.

-Demonstrates substantial and continuing responsibility and accountability for planning, organizing, and implementing strategic goals.

-Implements, adjusts, and evaluates attainment of goals and metrics in accordance with the changing environment.

-Leads teams to evaluate and/or design activities that support information technology, clinical application development, and implementation and ongoing monitoring of clinical information systems.

-Leads issue resolution and mitigation strategies for a range of interprofessional informatics functions to include but not limited to business process and workflow optimization, training and education, content management, and addresses barriers to workflow and system adoption. Integrates optimization of nursing efficiency and effectiveness within an interprofessional collaborative paradigm.

-Improves care delivery through measured outcomes by supporting the development, implementation, evaluation, monitoring, and maintenance of clinical decision support and integrated health practices.

-Analyzes existing health processes and identifies ways that health data and information and knowledge can provide wisdom to health practices that support innovation through informatics principles.

-Leads the advancement of healthcare capabilities and evolving technologies connected to the electronic health record (EHR) to deliver interprofessional team-based care by leveraging the nursing process.

-Evaluates content quality and ensures access to knowledge resources, eliminating redundancy in data sources, and improving information across the organization through expert understanding of foundational, structural, and semantic interoperability.

-Assigns work based on priorities, aligning the complexity of the work with employee capability.

Pay: Competitive salary, regular salary increases, potential for performance awards
Paid Time Off: 50 days of paid time off per year (26 days of annual leave, 13 days of sick leave, 11 paid Federal holidays per year)
Retirement: Traditional federal pension (5 years vesting) and federal 401K with up to 5% in contributions by VA
Insurance: Federal health/vision/dental/term life/long-term care (many federal insurance programs can be carried into retirement)
Licensure: 1 full and unrestricted license from any US State or territory

Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 8am-4:30pm
Telework: Eligible
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives/Expenses: Not Authorized
Financial Disclosure Report: Not required
VA offers a comprehensive total rewards package: VA Nurse Total Rewards

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

• U.S. Citizenship; non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
• All applicants tentatively selected for VA employment in a testing designated position are subject to urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use prior to appointment. Applicants who refuse to be tested will be denied employment with VA.
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959.
• Must be proficient in written and spoken English.
• You may be required to serve a probationary period.
• Subject to background/security investigation.
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process.
• Must pass pre-employment physical examination
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP).
• Participation in the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination program is a requirement for all Veterans Health Administration Health Care Personnel (HCP) - See "Additional Information" below for details.

Qualifications

Basic Requirements:

• U.S. citizenship. Non-citizens may be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
• Graduate of a school of professional nursing approved and accredited by one of the following accrediting bodies at the time the program was completed by the applicant: The Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) or The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). In cases of graduates of foreign schools of professional nursing, possession of current, full, active and unrestricted registration will meet the requirement of graduation from an approved school of professional nursing.
• The completion of coursework equivalent to a nursing degree in a MSN Bridge Program that qualifies for professional nursing registration constitutes the completion of an approved course of study of professional nursing. Students should submit the certificate of professional nursing to sit for the NCLEX to the VA along with a copy of the MSN transcript. (Reference VA Handbook 5005, Appendix G6).
• Current, full, active, and unrestricted registration as a graduate professional nurse in a State, Territory or Commonwealth (i.e., Puerto Rico) of the United States, or the District of Columbia.
• English Language Proficiency: Qualified applicants must be proficient in spoken and written English as required by 38 U.S.C. 7402(d), and 7407(d).

Preferred Experience: - Doctorate level degree preferred. Preferred ANCC certification in nursing informatics specialty with expertise in integration of nursing informatics standards. Demonstrated nursing informatics experience at the VISN, National, or Enterprise level. Preferred 10+ years experience practicing nursing informatics for Veterans Affairs. Expert in transformational nursing initiatives that reflect nursing standardization and excellence within technology to measure nursing excellence. Expertise in design, development, implementation of new methodologies to measure nursing value across the continuum of care.

Grade Determinations: The following criteria must be met in determining the grade assignment of candidates:

Nurse IV - Master's degree in nursing or related field with BSN and approximately 4-5 year's of nursing practice/experience; OR a Doctoral degree in nursing or related field and appropriate basic or advanced certification desired, and approximately 3-4 year's of nursing practice/experience. Reference: VA Regulations, specifically VA Handbook 5005, Part II, Appendix G-6 Nurse Qualification Standard. This can be found in the local Human Resources Office.

Physical Requirements: The work is predominantly sedentary and should not require any special physical effort. Work may periodically require extended periods of walking or standing, and occasional bending, climbing stairs, or carrying items such as books, instruments, or laptops that should not exceed 20 lbs. Occasional travel may be required.

Education

IMPORTANT: A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education.

Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/ . If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-visitus-forrecog.html .

Additional information

This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies.

This position is in the Excepted Service and does not confer competitive status.

VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply. The health-related positions in VA are covered by Title 38, and are not covered by the Schedule A excepted appointment authority.

Pursuant to VHA Directive 1193.01, VHA health care personnel (HCP) are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 subject to such accommodations as required by law (i.e., medical, religious or pregnancy). VHA HCPs do not include remote workers who only infrequently enter VHA locations. If selected, you will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and submit documentation of proof of vaccination before your start date. The agency will provide additional information regarding what information or documentation will be needed and how you can request a legally required accommodation from this requirement using the reasonable accommodation process.

If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement.