General Responsibilities

The Comprehensive Heart Failure and Advanced Cardiac Disease Program nurse practitioner or physician assistant will be responsible to provide care in both the hospital inpatient and ambulatory outpatient settings and will work collaboratively as an integral member of a multidisciplinary advanced heart failure team.

Reports to

• Clinical Chief, Comprehensive Heart Failure and Advanced Cardiac Disease Program
• Tracy Hunter
• Chief Nursing Officer – Jefferson Health – New Jersey

Scope of Care to be Provided

• Perform situation-apropriate history & physical examinations, formulate differential diagnosis, propose plan of care, and document said findings in the medical record.
• Order and collect data using established guideline-based assessment techniques
• Order diagnostic procedures and therapeutic interventions
• Serve as the first responder for nursing and house staff in case of patient status changes, orders, and situations requiring procedural and resuscitative interventions.
• Assesses for risks associated with the care of the acute and complex chronically ill patient including medication side effects, immobility, impaired nutrition, fluid and electrolyte imbalance, immunocompetence/immunosuppression, invasive interventions, and diagnostic procedures.
• Identify complications and orders appropriate interventions

• Review and interpret diagnostic tests and laboratory data and present/review findings of concern with attending physician

• Understand and apply evidenced-based practice guidelines and institution/program-specific protocols to help create individualized plans of care

• Perform advanced procedures consistent with privileges and competency validation.
• Collaborate with interdisciplinary health care team including social services, case management, nursing, and pharmacy to optimize the care of complex chronic conditions, reduce readmission, and reduce length of stay.

Heart Failure Specific Responsibilities

• Review event monitors and discuss results with physician
• Educate patients with congestive heart failure due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, amyloidosis, pulmonary hypertension, cardiac sarcoidosis, etc.
• Order, monitor, and adjust immunosuppressant drug levels
• Monitor implanted hemodynamic monitors, address findings, and communicate results to patients and physician, as needed
• Order and monitor genetic testing results and communicate results to physician
• Review impedance measurements obtained from implantable hemodynamic monitors and implantable cardioverter defibrillators, assess fluid volume status, and address as needed
• Perform exercise stress tests and/or six-minute walk tests

Documentation

• Documents in the medical record key components of patient's inpatient or outpatient progress via but not limited to admitting history and physical examinations, daily progress notes, plans of care, creation of problem lists, written procedure notes, acute event notes, transfer/discharge summaries, telephone and video patient encounters and expiration notes)
• Documentation shall be timely and meets acute care compliance standards and captures patient acuity.

Communication and Collaboration

• Maintain ongoing communication and collaboration with interdisciplinary health care team including admitting physician, consulting physicians, and advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologist.
• Facilitates and communicates with patients, family, and staff to promote continuity of care across the inpatient and outpatient continuum of care and ensure patient satisfaction.

Professional Practice

• Demonstrate Professional Practice behaviors including, but not limited to preceptor/mentoring, education and instruction of graduate students and nursing staff at the hospital.
• Seek opportunities for active engagement in research and the analysis of evidenced based practice.
• Actively participate in Advance Practice Grand Rounds and specialty-specific meetings.
• Maintains CEUs, and membership in a professional organization.
• Participate in the preparation of abstracts and publications as needed

Qualifications

Master’s Degree

National Board Certification as an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistant

BLS certification

Jefferson includes Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, a dynamic university and health system with broad reach across the Delaware Valley. Jefferson is the second largest employer in Philadelphia and the largest health system in Philadelphia based on total licensed beds.

Through the merger of Thomas Jefferson University and Philadelphia University in 2017, our University includes ten colleges and four schools. We are an NCAA Division II university and an R2 national doctoral university offering undergraduate and graduate-level programs that provide students with a forward-thinking education in architecture, business, design, engineering, fashion and textiles, health, medicine and social science.

Jefferson Health, the clinical arm of Thomas Jefferson University, has grown from a three-hospital academic health center in 2015, to an 18-hospital health system through mergers and combinations that include hospitals at Abington Health, Aria Health, Kennedy Health, Magee Rehabilitation and Einstein Healthcare Network. We have over 50 outpatient and urgent care centers; ten Magnet®-designated hospitals (recognized by the ANCC for nursing excellence); the NCI-designated Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (one of only 70 in the country and one of only two in the region); and one of the largest faculty-based telehealth networks in the country. In 2021, Jefferson Health became the sole owner of HealthPartners Plan, a not-for-profit health maintenance organization in Southeastern Pennsylvania. We are the first health system regionally to create an aligned payer-provider partnership.

Jefferson’s mission, vision and values create an organization that attracts the best and the brightest students, faculty, staff, and healthcare professionals, as well as the most visionary leaders to drive exceptional results.

• OUR MISSION: We improve lives.
• OUR VISION: Reimagining health, education and discovery to create unparalleled value
• OUR VALUES: Put People First, Be Bold & Think Differently and Do the Right Thing

As an employer, Jefferson maintains a commitment to provide equal access to employment. Jefferson values diversity and encourages applications from women, members of minority groups, LGBTQ individuals, disabled individuals, and veterans.