WHAT DOES A DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY SERVICES DO?
Published: Dec 2, 2024 – The Director of Emergency Services manages operational, personnel, and financial resources to ensure efficient healthcare delivery, patient safety, and regulatory compliance. This position oversees quality improvement initiatives, including goal setting, monitoring, reporting, and process adjustments to enhance care standards. The director also collaborates with interdisciplinary teams to address patient care issues, foster staff development, and improve overall satisfaction.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Director of Emergency Services
1. Director of Emergency Services Responsibilities
- Leadership: Direct all administrative and operational activities associated with the adult and pediatric emergency departments as well as pediatric sedation.
- Policy Development: Develop and maintain operating policies, procedures, and staffing to meet departmental needs.
- Resource Management: Monitor the use of resources and provide managerial leadership and direction to the staff.
- Strategic Planning: Create and implement short and long-range plans and incorporate new advances and technological initiatives to improve operational effectiveness.
- Clinical Outreach: Advise and assist in the development and successful operation of clinical outreach initiatives.
- Goal Setting: Determine and communicate work goals, objectives, and standards to supervised staff.
- Customer Satisfaction: Ensure timely and effective availability of patient and family support services, address patient complaints, facilitate prompt resolution, and develop methods to evaluate customer satisfaction.
- Capital Equipment Procurement: In conjunction with faculty, provide recommendations and facilitate the purchase of capital equipment and renovation/construction projects.
- Regulatory Compliance: Comply with standards and regulations of various agencies regarding regulatory compliance including hospital and nursing department policies and procedures.
- Project Management: Complete special projects regularly or as assigned.
- Service Delivery: Establish and monitor service delivery standards and work with faculty, nursing, and ancillaries to ensure patient care delivery meets expectations and fiscal goals.
2. Director of Emergency Services Accountabilities
- Feasibility Studies: Conduct feasibility studies and gather data to accurately measure the performance of clinical quality.
- Quality Program Development: Develop programs to continually measure and evaluate quality.
- Leadership: Set a positive tone and professional leadership example, and establish collaborative, timely, and effective communications with senior leadership, physician leadership, staff, and other departments.
- Budget Management: Work with the Executive Director to monitor the budget within established guidelines.
- Compliance Monitoring: Monitor the chargemaster, charges, bill hold, and compliance issues.
- Patient Care Management: Maintain cost-effective, safe quality patient care in all areas.
- Resource Coordination: Coordinates appropriate use of supplies, equipment, and personnel.
- Staff Engagement: Encourages staff and physician input on unit equipment needs.
- Staffing Management: Staff department appropriately to meet patient care needs within specified hours per patient day following established policies.
- Utilization Support: Knowledgeable in utilization issues and supports Case Managers in efforts to move patients.
3. Director of Emergency Services Functions
- Supervision: Responsible for the supervision, coordination, and evaluation of all care provided in the Emergency Department.
- Operations Management: Oversee the departments' operations to ensure the safe and efficient delivery of care and to maximize patient, physician, and employee satisfaction.
- Clinical and Financial Management: Responsible for the clinical, operational, and financial management of the emergency departments.
- Clinical Standards: Ensure appropriate clinical standards, policies, and procedures are developed and implemented.
- Quality Monitoring: Develop and review monitoring activities related to the quality of nursing care provided.
- Regulatory Compliance: Ensure compliance with all regulatory and accrediting agencies.
- Financial Management: Manage the services following established financial guidelines.
- Policy Development: Develop, implement, and monitor departmental policies and procedures that support the organization's goals and business objectives and ensure they are met.
- Standards of Care: Develop standards of care and standards of practice, direct fiscal management, and quality improvement activities.
- HR and Risk Management: Manage and resolve human resources, employee and department safety, and risk management issues.
4. Director of Emergency Services Job Description
- Provider Engagement: Maintain provider engagement and satisfaction and the fulfillment of the clinician’s career goals.
- Collaboration and Performance Management: Work collaboratively to develop appropriate care, staffing, and responsibilities to ensure both patient outcomes and financial metrics are met, resolving clinician performance issues.
- Teaching and Research Integration: Support the integration of excellent teaching and research programming into Emergency Services.
- Research Integration: Collaborate with the Department Chair and VP of Research to identify optimal ways to integrate research into the delivery of care by implementing related initiatives while ensuring the needs of the community are met.
- Teaching Integration: Work in partnership with the Department Chair and Directors on approaches to integrate teaching into operations, where applicable.
- Academic and Research Support: Support the Department Chair on issues about the direction, development, and maintenance of academic and research programs within the department.
- Budget Support: Defer to the Department Chair on budget issues related to teaching and research.
- Faculty Engagement: Promote faculty engagement by cooperating with and supporting the efforts of the Department Chair in direct faculty recruitment, setting and enforcing quality standards for faculty, and fostering high faculty engagement.
- Recruitment Support: Collaborates with Department Chair, Directors, and Nursing Leadership to identify the need for and skill sets of new provider recruitment.
- Budget Commitment: Support the hire through the commitment of budget support for clinical and administrative efforts.
5. Director of Emergency Services Overview
- Operations Management: Oversee the operational, personnel, and fiscal management of assigned areas of responsibility, emphasizing high-quality, cost-effective patient care.
- Leadership and Productivity: Mentor other leaders in the department, monitor daily productivity, address variance from established standards, and adjust staffing to maintain established productivity standards.
- Quality Improvement: Establish annual unit-specific quality improvement goals, conduct monitoring, analysis, process changes, reporting, and re-evaluation of prepared goals to the Nursing Quality Council and Clinic Quality Council.
- Adverse Event Investigation: Investigate adverse events, review data and findings, assess trends, act on self-remediation needs, and identify development opportunities.
- Cross-Department Collaboration: Collaborate with non-nursing departments to establish processes and address issues that enhance patient care and satisfaction.
- Rounds and Assessments: Conduct and participate in daily rounds to identify immediate needs, monthly patient room rounds, monthly Environment of Care Rounds, Tracers, and Patient Safety Rounds, and promptly act on findings.
- Staff Engagement: Establish opportunities to acquire input, including monthly Action Unit Committees, staff meetings, and other creative mechanisms.
- Regulatory Compliance: Comply with the requirements of regulatory, licensing, and accrediting agencies.
- Measurement and Evaluation: Design measurements and tools to evaluate achievement and education strategies.
- Knowledge Gap Identification: Identify and communicate communication gaps in staff knowledge and competency.
- Resource Management: Direct the effective management of financial, informational, and personnel resources to ensure efficient operations and continuity of care.