Director of Nursing, Pediatrics

Department Overview

Lead the Future of Pediatric Nursing at OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.

At OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, we go beyond care — we transform lives. Located in vibrant Portland, Oregon, Doernbecher is Oregon’s premier pediatric academic medical center, delivering world-class care, advancing groundbreaking research, and training the next generation of pediatric healthcare leaders.

As the first full-service children’s hospital in the Pacific Northwest, we offer:

• Comprehensive, family-centered care for everything from primary pediatrics to the most complex conditions
• Access to cutting-edge research and innovation through our deep integration with Oregon Health & Science University
• A collaborative, mission-driven environment where equity, excellence, and innovation drive everything we do

We're proud to be:

• A Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center
• Magnet designated facility
• Oregon’s only Academic Health Center
• A regional destination for advanced care in oncology, neonatology, and craniofacial medicine
• A hospital that believes in the power of nurse leaders to drive change 

Bring your purpose. Lead with impact. Grow with us.

Function/Duties of Position

The Nursing Director is a Registered Nurse (RN) responsible for upholding excellence in the provision of nursing care through the implementation of the Professional Practice Model. The Nursing Director is responsible for operational, human resource, quality, and financial management of the assigned department. The Nursing Director utilizes professional practice as the foundation for leading nursing practice.

The Nursing Director collaborates with the interdisciplinary team to translate and implement organizational and divisional priorities into the department’s operations. The Nursing Director implements quality and safety initiatives, leads process improvement, and ensures adherence to hospital and clinical standards of performance. The Nursing Director ensures a patient care environment that supports a safe, knowledgeable, compassionate, productive, and engaged staff. The Nursing Director partners with the interdisciplinary care team to ensure the delivery of safe, quality patient care and compliance with administrative, regulatory, and clinical policies and procedures.

The NM’s decisions and actions are based on the ethical principles outlined by the American Nurses Association’s Code of Ethics for Nursing. The NM practices in adherence with the American Nurses Association’s (ANA) Nursing Administration: Scope and Standards of Practice for Nurse Administrators, the ANA Code of Ethics for Nursing, the Oregon State Board of Nursing’s Nurse Practice Act, and within the context of the Nurse Manager Competencies developed by the American Organization of Nurse Leaders (AONL). The NM exemplifies the principles of the OHSU Culture of Safety Position Statement by committing to a Just Culture, a Reporting Culture, a Learning Culture, and an Engaged Informed Culture. 

Strategic Planning: 

• Partners with others to develop a department strategic plan that aligns with the division’s strategic plan and nursing’s vision. 
• Collaboratively formulate department objectives, goals and specific strategies related to initiatives. 
• Develops short and long-term goals that identify the target conditions. 
• Coordinates the implementation of interventions to meet  ldepartment-level goals. 
• Communicates, implements, and evaluates the care area strategic plan. 

Operations Leadership: 

• Partners with others to enhance healthcare and, ultimately, patient care through interdisciplinary activities, such as education, consultation, management, technological development, or research opportunities. 
• Applies systems theory with an understanding that how parts of a system relate to the overall system. 
• Maintains knowledge of current nursing practice and the roles and functions of care team members (e.g. charge nurse, code team, RRT) 
• Evaluates staff competency and intervenes to optimize performance and ensure safe, quality, effective and efficient patient care. 
• Leads and practices patient/family advocacy and promotes patient-centered decisions and outcomes. 
• Maintains visibility and open communication with the staff and department leadership 
• Communicates plans and decisions to department staff and other stakeholders. 
• Asserts view in a non-judgmental manner. 
• Reflects on own method of decision-making and the role of beliefs, values and inferences to develop leadership and performance capacity. 
• Practices within shared-governance structures to distribute leadership and promote decision-making appropriate level within the governance structure 
• Celebrate successes and accomplishments. 

Financial Management:

• Achieves financial targets: Manages productive, non-productive and premium pay to optimize performance goals. 
• Collaborates with the Professional Practice Leader to prioritize and allocate resources for department/division level education & practice priorities. 
• Develops innovative solutions and applies strategies to obtain appropriate resources for nursing initiatives. 
• Promotes activities that inform others about cost, risks, benefits or care, or of the plan and solution. 

Human Resources 

• Uses evidence-based leadership to promote desired behaviors 
• Develops a high-functioning workforce in collaboration with the department leadership 
• Recognizes and rewards exemplary professional practice 
• Mentors and coaches staff in an ongoing and progressive manner 
• Monitors and evaluates the application of practice standards 
• Collaborates with department leadership to facilitate behaviors that impact safety, quality, patient satisfaction, and employee satisfaction. 
• Collaborates with the PPL to Identify individual practice issues, develops improvement strategies, and evaluates performance for all nursing staff on assigned care areas. 
• Leads department efforts to recruit and retain highly qualified staff. 
• Develops department succession planning initiatives. 

Performance Improvement 

• Develops the department/division quality plan in collaboration with the care area’s formal and informal leaders. 
• Utilizes data to identify areas for improvement based on assessment and current states. 
• Monitors and uses data to determine patient care quality improvement objectives. 
• Evaluates the practice environment and designs and implements quality improvement strategies to ensure nursing sensitive outcomes meets or exceeds established goals. 
• Engages staff in department initiatives. 
• Evaluates the impact/benefits of organizational, nursing, and department initiatives. 
• Identifies areas of risk and makes suggestions for reducing risk and improving outcomes. 
• Trends and investigates concerns and errors to understand the root cause of occurrences of errors or adverse events and success. 
• Communicates learning to disseminate best practices. 

Professionalism 

• Evaluates practice in relation to the professional practice standards and existing evidence. 
• Promotes clinical nurses’ translation of theory, scope & standards into practice to exercise autonomy and decision-making authority 
• Advances practice excellence by communicating a clear and consistent message about the ownership of role and standards -based professional practice. 
• Engages in informal and formal processes of giving and seeking feedback regarding role performance from individuals, professional colleagues, representatives, administrators, and others. 
• Mentors and supports others to access resources for their professional development. 

Required Qualifications

• BSN required AND Master’s degree in nursing or related field required. 
• Seven (7) years of relevant clinical experience AND five (5) years of progressive nursing management experience, including oversight of multiple units or complex clinical programs.
• Demonstrated ability to lead in a large, matrixed health system.
• Licenses or Certifications:
  • Current unencumbered Oregon RN license.
  • Professional certification in nursing leadership (e.g., Nurse Executive/Administrator) required within 3 years of hire.

Preferred Qualifications

• Doctoral preparation.

Additional Details

This position also comes with great benefits! Some highlights include:

• Comprehensive health care plans that cover 100% for a full-time employee and 88% for dependents for .75 FTE and higher.
• $50K of term life insurance provided at no cost to the employee
• Two separate above market pension plans to choose from
• Paid time off- 208 hours per year (full-time), prorated for part-time
• Extended illness bank- 64 hours per year, prorated for part-time
• 9 paid holidays per year
• Three weeks of paid parental leave
• Adoption assistance program (up to 5k)
• Substantial Tri-met and C-Tran discounts
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Innovative Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Why apply to OHSU?

We are Oregon's only public academic health center. In addition to caring for patients, we lead groundbreaking research. We also train the next generation of health care professionals. As Portland's largest employer, we give you opportunities to learn and advance in a system of hospitals and clinics across Oregon and Southwest Washington.
All are welcome. OHSU welcomes people of all ages, ethnicities, genders, national origins, religions and sexual orientations. We are striving to build an anti-racist, multicultural institution and encourage people with diverse backgrounds to apply. To request reasonable accommodation, contact [email protected]