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The incumbent provides clinical support to the department and assists in all aspect of food service. The incumbent works closely with FNS Supervisors to insure proper nutritional provisions for the enhancement of evidenced based practice and continuity of patient care throughout the healthcare continuum. The Supervisor coordinates care and collaborates with other professional disciplines as needed, to optimize patient outcomes.
The Supervisor acts as a role model, resource, and coach to Nutrition Representatives to provide ongoing support for professional development, maintenance of the standards of care and quality outcomes, and by providing ongoing support through identification, development and use of evidence based guidelines to maintain and improve high quality, cost-effective patient care.
The Supervisor facilitates professional relationships between physicians, nursing, clinical dietary staff and interdisciplinary teams to provide a patient focused plan of care. This position is subject to a heavy volume of service-related issues and problems and requests for special food items on a daily basis. High standards of professionalism and respect for confidentiality of patient data are required. The position has frequent contact with department leaders and nursing staff to discuss nutrition and patient food service issues or problems. The incumbent works closely with the other department leaders, to assure coordination of services from the department.
The Supervisor has the responsibility and authority for interviewing, hiring, training, counseling, and evaluating Nutrition Representatives. If staffing needs arise, the Supervisor may provide direct patient care which can include the assessment and planning of meals for all ages including infants, children, adolescent, adult and geriatric patients and families. They can demonstrate the ability to work with patient’s physical, motor/sensory adaptation, cognitive and psychosocial needs specific to the population being served and meets standards of quality as measured by the department age specific competency standards.
The major challenges to this position are:
• In the absence of the Manager of Clinical Nutrition, incumbent will act in and perform duties of department leadership, as assigned and defined by the Manager of Clinical Nutrition.
• Interacting with difficult or angry patients and/or family members who may complain because they are unhappy with their restrictive diets and/or the service being provided.
• Authorizing and providing menu substitutions within the constraints of the food production system, dietary restrictions and patient tolerances.
• Ensure that all patients are provided with a level of service that is conducive to optimizing the healthcare experience.
• Organize and complete a large number of various projects and tasks within set deadlines through effective time management.
• Evaluate and improve clinical nutrition services in a fast changing field.
• Increase employee productivity to promote cost containment, while maintaining employee job satisfaction.
This position requires daily independent decisions, i.e., clinical nutrition service procedures; those related to staffing, food substitutions within prescribed diet prescriptions, communicating patient issues with other members of the nutrition care/food service team, and service recovery issues.
Decisions referred to the Manager for either consultation or approval includes those relating to unusual circumstances or those that do not follow established Renown Regional Medical Center guidelines.
It is common to encounter potential hazards in the healthcare environment. Some of these hazards could include, but are not limited to: Radiation, Toxic Chemicals, Biological Hazards, Heat, Noise, Dust and Stress. Renown Regional Medical Center has a Safety Management Program in place addressing these issues.
This position does provide patient care.
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