POSITION TITLE: Inpatient Psychiatric Registered Nurse (RN)

REPORTS TO (TITLE): Director of Nursing

DESCRIPTION OF POSITION:

The Inpatient Psychiatric RN top priority is to deliver high quality safe care to psychiatric inpatients in the acute locked hospital facility. The Inpatient Psychiatric RN provides direct care and treatment to inpatients and coordinates the care provided by other nursing personnel. The Inpatient Psychiatric RN plans and coordinates each patient’s individual nursing care plans, and implements nursing related aspects of the multidisciplinary treatment plan (MDTP). The Inpatient Psychiatric RN embraces Santa Rosa Behavioral Healthcare Hospital’s (SRBHH) mission, vision and value statements and adheres to and follows all the hospital policies and procedures. The Inpatient Psychiatric RN understands the regulations and standards that govern acute psychiatric hospital services and provides clear direction to their immediate nursing team to meet all regulations, standards, and requirements.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Assess inpatient needs, nursing staff resources and complete inpatient/unit assignments based on acuity, inpatient treatment plan goals, and unit operations.
• Assess all inpatients’ status, provide direct care to assigned group of inpatients, documents patient care and assessments rendered, prepares and administers medications as needed, and ensure necessary documentation is completed at the end of each shift.
• Provide clinical summary information to other team members at treatment team meetings, shift reports and other hand-offs. The Inpatient Psychiatric RN provides continual oversight of all inpatients and inpatient psychiatric unit operations.
• Work with nursing and other clinical staff to plan and document patient care. Document care plans on the MDTP and include inpatient problems, goals for hospitalization, and short-term goals. Includes interventions provided by team members to assist inpatients in returning to a reasonable mental health status and ultimately lower level of care.
• Provide patient care by routinely demonstrating knowledge of mental health diagnoses, standards of care, evidenced based practice, medications (including old and new psychotropic medications), high risks for mental health patients, National Patient Safety Goals, and models of care.
• Apply nursing process and process improvement principles to all levels of the organization. The scope of this process ranges from patient needs to the hospital needs as a whole. This includes ability to assess, collect data, define problems, set goals, initiate interventions and evaluate interventions. Complete timely Incident Reports and submits them to the Nurse Manager or RN House Supervisor.
• Identify staffing needs based on staffing plan and acuity assessments.
• Provide direct clinical oversight to other nursing staff throughout the shift in conjunction with the Nurse Manager, RN House Supervisor, or Director of Nursing (DON) as appropriate.
• Coordinate team members’ immediate response during psychiatric crises of inpatients and provide effective leadership at all times.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Requirements

Education/Licensure:

• Current California RN License
• Current CPR certification (or obtained within 30 days of hire).
• Current CPI certification (or obtained within 30 days of hire).
• Knowledge and experience of psychiatric diagnosis and associated risks, medications, biological systems, nursing process, treatment planning, inpatient hospital unit operations, and leadership. New RN graduates may meet these requirements if they have completed a psychiatric rotation as part of nursing school or have psychiatric experience in another role.

Skills and Competencies:

The Inpatient Psychiatric RN will pass initial and annual competency evaluations including (not limited to): suicide prevention, safe use of restraints, de-escalation interventions, medication knowledge, code blue/emergency interventions, infection prevention, and appropriate use of seclusion and restraints. The Inpatient Psychiatric RN will demonstrate skill in applying knowledge and competency in daily nursing practice. Maintain a working knowledge of commonly used policies, awareness of policy changes and knows where to find additional polices and needed information.

Physical Requirements

While performing the duties of this job, this position is frequently required to do the following:

• Stoop, kneel, crouch, reach, and stand for sustained period of time.
• Walk, push, pull, lift, carry objects from a lower to higher position or horizontally from position to position or otherwise move objects.
• Feel sizes, shapes, temperatures, and textures by touching with skin, particularly that of the fingertips.
• Express or exchange ideas orally and potentially loudly, accurately, or quickly.
• Perceive the nature of sound with no less than a 40 db loss @ 1000 Hz and 2000 Hz with or without correction.
• Exert up to 100 pounds of force occasionally, and/or up to 20 pounds of force frequently.
• Able to provide manual and mechanical restraints for patients who are physically acting out and are potentially dangerous (at times this occurs on the floor.)
• Minimum standard of visual acuity with or without correction.
• While worker may possibly be subjected to temperature changes, the worker is generally not substantially exposed to adverse environmental conditions as the work is predominantly inside.

Benefits

• Medical
• Vision
• Dental
• 401(k)
• 3.5 Weeks Paid Time Off
• $25,000 Life insurance policy is provided at no charge to the employee