The Patient Care Coordinator is accountable for care coordination from admission to discharge for a group of patients on an assigned nursing unit. For each assigned patient, the PCC functions in concert with the interdisciplinary care team and physician to ensure the development and implementation of a disease specific plan of care, daily (or more frequent) review and revision of the plan of care based on patient progress, and ongoing communication with the patient and family regarding expected outcomes of care. The PCC is accountable for identifying and removing barriers that will prevent and/or delay a patient from reaching his/her outcome goals in a timely manner and for the development and execution of an appropriate discharge plan to address the patient’s post-acute care needs. The PCC supports the collection and analysis of data related to patient outcomes and the effective use and access to resources to support patient outcomes. In partnership with the Unit Nurse Manager, the PCC shares ongoing responsibility for the outcomes of care for patients throughout their stay on a designated unit.

Education:

• Associate degree in Nursing required.
• Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Nursing preferred.

Licensure/Certification/Registry:

• Current RN licensure in the State of Illinois required.

Experience:

• Minimum of 2 years of recent acute care nursing experience required.

Other Knowledge/Skills/Abilities:

• Understanding of healthcare reimbursement mechanisms preferred.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.
• Understanding of principles of performance improvement, team collaboration, and conflict resolution.
• Understanding for the principles of care coordination, care transitions, discharge planning, and utilization review.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.
• Customer service skills are necessary.

Care Coordination:

1. Leads efforts with the interdisciplinary care team to develop, implement, and evaluate an individualized plan of care to achieve optimal patient outcomes for each assigned patient.
2. Ensures that patient safety risks are assessed and prevention measure are implemented and communicated to all members of the interdisciplinary care team.
3. Routinely reviews the plan of care with the patient and family to assist them in understanding goals of care and movement toward these goals.
4. Assures timely communication of patient’s response to care, clinical data, and diagnostic test results to appropriate physicians, care team members, and patient/ family.
5. Ensure patient education needs are being met on a regular basis.
6. Makes referrals to other disciplines as necessary to meet patient care needs (social work, therapy, etc.)
7. Conducts daily huddles with care team to ensure plan of care is being implemented and progress toward established goals is being achieved.
8. Provides timely communication of changes in the plan of care to all care team members and patient/ family.
9. Leads patient/ family care conferences on appropriate patients based on LOS and complexity of care.
10. Collaborates with physicians and Utilization Management staff to ensure resource utilization remain within covered benefits.
11. Monitors each patient’s treatment plan for testing/treatment not related to current hospitalization and interfaces with physician to identify alternatives to address needs.  

Discharge Planning:

1. Writes, plan for post discharge services and collaborates with Discharge planner to ensure services are scheduled with appropriate entities, which could include: home health, home infusion, hospice care, durable medical equipment, medical supplies, and outpatient services.
2. Validates appropriate discharge education is provided to patient/ family / caregiver.
3. Interacts with patient/ family/ caregiver to ensure discharge plan meets patient needs
4. Collaborates with Discharge planner to updates patient/ family and interdisciplinary care team of changes in the discharge plan.

Quality Management:

1. Ensures care provided to assigned patients is consistent with national quality guidelines and appropriately documented in the patient’s medical record.
2. Identifies problems and opportunities for improvement in clinical outcomes, patient safety, and or resource utilization.
3. Leads effort to resolve ongoing patient and or systems problems.
4. Participates in unit goal setting, program development, clinical and system process improvement, and achievement of desired unit outcomes.
5. Implements strategies to reduce resource utilization and length of stay for assigned patients.
6. Assists with collection, analysis, and reporting of clinical outcome and resource utilization data.

Leadership:

1. Participates in local and national professional nursing organizations.
2. Identifies areas for professional growth and demonstrates ongoing activities necessary to meeting professional goals and changing needs of organization.
3. Promotes implementation of evidence based nursing practice.
4. Participates in nursing scholarship and research activities.
5. Partners with Unit Nurse Manager to ensure unit clinical outcomes goals are achieved.
6. Performs other related work as required or requested.