Director, Nursing & Patient Care Staffing and Resource Management

At Duke Health, we're driven by a commitment to compassionate care that changes the lives of patients, their loved ones, and the greater community. No matter where your talents lie, join us and discover how we can advance health together.

The Director of Nursing & Patient Care Staffing is responsible for oversight of clinical scheduling and staffing operations for DUHS.  The director will have administrative oversight of daily staffing, staffing policy management, analytics, and disseminating staffing best practices & innovations throughout the organization. Additionally, the director will provide oversight of DUHS staffing technology. In conjunction with Nursing & Patient Care senior leadership, the director will develop strategies for staffing and scheduling to ensure optimal staffing to deliver quality care and meet business requirements. The director will facilitate collaborative working relationships within multiple departments to include the DUHS Float Pool, Patient Flow, and  Operations Administrators to ensure leaders have available information to make data driven staffing decisions.

Job duties:

Leadership

• Creates a vision and strategies that will ensure adequate numbers of appropriately prepared nursing and other clinical personnel are available for staffing.
• Serves as the DUHS staffing leader responsible for managing day-to-day staffing and scheduling operations.
• Serves as the leader for clinical staffing, ensuring that all supplemental staffing efforts (redeployment, temporary labor, contract labor) are coordinated and consistent across the health system.  Ensures that staffing is consistent and continuously improved across the health system.
• Evaluates staffing best practices and incorporate these practices
• Provides mentoring and support for leaders related to staffing, scheduling and supplemental resources.
• Promotes a culture of excellence.

Collaboration & Consulting

• Acts as a collaborative partner with key leadership stakeholders to review staffing gaps, assess root causes, and develop innovative solutions.
• Advises nursing senior leadership regarding staffing issues that significantly impact operations.
• Ensures training is delivered to new managers and staffing committees on leading practices in staff and staffing technology.
• Develops forums for front-line staff engagement in staffing solutions (i.e. employee staffing committee).
• Creates and delivers communications and reports to leadership highlighting key performance indicators aligned to various staffing initiatives.
• Establishes positive working relationships and credibility with all managers and leaders to drive appropriate staffing.

Data Analysis

• Develops and analyzes metrics and key performance indicators related to staffing and scheduling.
• Partners with the Director of Nursing Operations to develop reports to support staffing.
• Collaborates with Director of Nursing Operations to develop daily and trended staffing reports, ensure reports are distributed to organization leaders.
• Coordinates DUHS participation in external staffing surveys.
• Collects, analyzes, and distributes data related to schedule balancing, floating and unfilled needs. Reviews and coordinates any special staffing needs with operational leaders to include evaluating functional vacancy rates, qualifying departments for special staffing incentives and / or use of travelers.
• Collaborates with managers to forecast staffing needs based on budget, flex volume, vacancies, pending hires and orientation, etc.

Staffing Systems, Infrastructure, and Continuous Improvement

• Monitor daily staffing need and utilize daily workflows, CareHub, and AI staffing technology to oversee daily staffing requirements and census fluctuations of each inpatient unit. Collaborate with operations administrators, unit managers, and charge nurses to ensure appropriate staffing levels and skill mix.
• Manage extended staffing needs and address long-term staffing requirements due to leaves of absence (LOAs), vacancies, and the opening of new areas. Collaborate with stakeholders to deploy supplemental staff effectively.
• Fill staffing gaps by deploying staff to the department with the greatest need using  supplemental staff (float pool and per diem staff)  and internal floats
• Monitor premium labor use, tracking the utilization of premium labor and deploying cost-effective resources to cover staffing needs efficiently.
• Report staffing metrics such as overtime, incentive usage, callout rates, inconvenient pay, and standby hours.
• Ensures optimal staffing in a cost-effective manner, minimize overtime and premium labor
• Develops process for managers to self-report their progress regarding goals related to adequacy of resources.
• Monitors compliance with staffing technology.
• Establishes staffing and scheduling goals at least annually. Staffing goals are developed to ensure optimal staffing
• Serves as the administrator for all technology that supports clinical scheduling, staffing, and contract labor activity.
• Develops common standards, infrastructure, policies and procedures for enhanced alignment of the staffing across the health system.

Knowledge, skills, and abilities 

• The Director of Nursing & Patient Care Staffing is a strong leader who can comfortably balance overseeing staffing operations, while also serving as a skilled strategic partner and advisor.
• Effective communicator, with strength communicating with all levels of an organization.
• Has previous staffing and scheduling experience

Able to successfully navigate in a fast-paced, matrixed, complex healthcare environment.

Education requirements/ preferences

Bachelor or higher degree in Nursing and Master's Degree in related field

Experience requirements/ preferences

Five years of nursing experience is required including at least 2 years of experience in a management role.

Licensure/ certification 

Current or compact RN licensure in the state of North Carolina is required.