Director, Education, Professional Practice and Nursing Excellence

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Day - 08 Hour (United States of America)
Location: Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley
Department: Nursing Excellence and Inquiry
Reports To: Assistant Chief Nursing Officer, Patient Safety, Accreditation and Nursing Excellence
FLSA Status: Exempt
A Brief Overview
The Director of Education, Professional Practice and Nursing Excellence provides strategic and operational leadership for nursing and interprofessional education, professional practice, workforce development, competency management, nursing excellence, evidence-based practice, research, and clinical inquiry across Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley.
The Director establishes integrated strategies, standards, and infrastructure that advance clinical competence, professional development, practice excellence, workforce readiness, and the generation and dissemination of new knowledge. The role ensures that education and professional practice programs align with organizational priorities, nursing strategic goals, clinical outcomes, regulatory requirements, and recognized standards of excellence.
In partnership with designated medical directors, the Director serves as the nursing and administrative dyadic leader for medical education and research. The dyad advances coordinated interprofessional education, simulation, clinical scholarship, academic partnerships, and research initiatives that strengthen collaboration among nurses, physicians, advanced practice providers, and other healthcare professionals.
What You Will Do
Strategic and Operational Leadership
Establish and execute an organization-wide strategy for education, professional practice, workforce development, nursing excellence, research, and inquiry.
Translate organizational and nursing priorities into measurable departmental goals, programs, and multiyear roadmaps.
Lead departmental operations, including staffing, performance management, budgeting, resource allocation, contracts, technology, and program evaluation.
Recruit, develop, and lead a multidisciplinary team responsible for education, professional practice, simulation, workforce development, nursing excellence, and research.
Represent the department on organizational committees, leadership forums, and strategic initiatives.
Establish performance measures demonstrating the clinical, workforce, operational, and financial impact of departmental programs.
Education, Professional Development and Competency
Provide strategic oversight for nursing and interprofessional education, orientation, onboarding, continuing education, simulation, transition-to-practice programs, and specialty development.
Establish organization-wide standards for learning-needs assessment, curriculum development, competency validation, program evaluation, and educational recordkeeping.
Ensure education addresses changes in clinical practice, policies, equipment, technology, services, regulatory requirements, and identified performance gaps.
Oversee learning-management-system administration, continuing-education processes, certification tracking, and required education reporting.
Partner with clinical and operational leaders to ensure staff possess the knowledge and skills necessary to provide safe, high-quality care.
Professional Practice
Provide leadership for nursing professional practice standards and the structures supporting consistent, evidence-based care.
Promote integration of the Nursing Professional Practice Model into clinical practice, education, decision-making, orientation, and professional governance.
Oversee professional practice consultation related to policies, clinical guidelines, standards of care, clinical pathways, new services, and changes in practice.
Ensure alignment among policies, education, competencies, clinical workflows, and regulatory requirements.
Lead structured change-management efforts that support implementation and sustained adoption of evidence-based practices and new models of care.
Nursing Excellence and Professional Governance
Lead the organization’s nursing excellence strategy and preparation for a future nursing excellence designation.
Oversee readiness assessments, performance monitoring, evidence development, communication, and improvement plans.
Advance shared decision-making and professional governance structures that enable nurses to influence clinical practice, education, quality, and professional development.
Develop strategies that support professional certification, academic advancement, mentoring, succession planning, recognition, engagement, and retention.
Coordinate nursing excellence dashboards, reports, presentations, and communication of nursing accomplishments.
Promote internal and external recognition of nursing outcomes, innovation, leadership, and scholarship.
Evidence-Based Practice, Research and Inquiry
Establish an integrated infrastructure for evidence-based practice, nursing research, innovation, and clinical scholarship.
Develop governance, consultation, education, mentorship, and standardized tools supporting evidence-based practice and research activities.
Build staff capability to distinguish among research, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and performance improvement.
Support project development, literature review, implementation, outcome measurement, regulatory review, and dissemination.
Develop partnerships with research offices, academic institutions, clinical experts, and community organizations.
Promote dissemination through presentations, posters, publications, conferences, research events, and professional forums.
Measure research participation, evidence-based practice adoption, scholarly dissemination, and impact on clinical outcomes.
Physician and Interprofessional Partnership
Serve as the nursing and administrative dyadic partner to designated medical directors for medical education and research, leading initiatives to strengthen clinical research infrastructure, improve education program oversight, and foster interdisciplinary collaboration across the system
Develop shared strategies, governance, goals, and performance measures for interprofessional education and research.
Coordinate nursing and medical education initiatives to strengthen team-based learning, reduce unnecessary duplication, and align clinical priorities.
Partner with physician leaders to expand simulation, faculty and preceptor engagement, learner experiences, academic affiliations, clinical scholarship, and research activity.
Support development of an organizational research roadmap and coordinated infrastructure for clinical research and clinical-trial activities.
Promote collaborative inquiry and dissemination among nurses, physicians, advanced practice providers, and other healthcare professionals.
Workforce Development and Academic Partnerships
Develop workforce strategies supporting recruitment, onboarding, transition to practice, retention, career advancement, and succession planning.
Oversee nursing and non-nursing career pathways, student placements, clinical affiliations, internships, residency programs, and academic partnerships.
Build pathways for employees to progress into specialty, educator, research, advanced-practice, and leadership roles.
Strengthen preceptor, mentor, clinical-instructor, and faculty-development programs.
Evaluate workforce programs using competency, retention, advancement, engagement, completion, and workforce-readiness outcomes.
Quality, Regulatory and Financial Stewardship
Ensure departmental programs comply with applicable professional, regulatory, accreditation, licensing, and continuing-education requirements.
Partner with Patient Safety, Quality, Accreditation, Infection Prevention, Risk Management, Human Resources, Nursing Informatics, and clinical leaders.
Use clinical outcomes, workforce trends, regulatory findings, and learner feedback to identify priorities and evaluate effectiveness.
Ensure appropriate education and competency responses to regulatory findings, corrective actions, high-risk processes, and new clinical services.
Promote financially responsible program design, resource stewardship, and reduction of unnecessary variation and duplication.
Organizational Scope
The Director provides leadership for functions that may include:
Nursing and interprofessional education
Professional development practitioners and unit-based educators
Nursing professional practice consultation
Continuing education and learning-management-system administration
Orientation, onboarding, residency, and transition-to-practice programs
Simulation and clinical skills development
Competency management
Workforce and career-pathway develop

Skills
Risk Management, Onboarding, Clinical Research