Patient Care Advocate

Summary

National Jewish Health is seeking a Patient Care Advocate to join our Clinical Quality team. The selected candidate will help patients understand and invoke their rights by:

• Advocating for patient rights and needs;
• Protecting confidentiality for patients and their families to ensure compliance with the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA); and
• Advocating for people with disabilities to ensure compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Patient Care Advocates on our team ensure that patients are satisfied with their experience at National Jewish  Health by:

• Identifying opportunities for improvement;
• Identifying innovations to improve the patient experience;
• Assisting caregivers in meeting patient needs, expectations and concerns.

The selected candidate will also provide education tools to perfect the patient experience by:

• Communicating National Jewish Health policies, procedures and services;
• Educating staff on how to provide the best customer service possible; and
• Serving as a resource for both patients and health care providers.

Position Summary
To serve as a liaison between patients/family members and departments in identifying and resolving patient issues.  Serves as a patient advocate, using a mediator approach whenever possible.  The overall goal is to improve patient satisfaction and service.

Essential Duties

1. Investigates patient complaints.  May include interviews with patients, families, and staff, as well as review of the medical record. Follow established procedure for resolution of complaints.
2. Facilitates communication between patient, family, physicians, and staff.
3. Conducts education and teaching of staff related to patient rights, proper use of patient representative programs, consumer sensitivity, etc.
4. Trends, collect, and analyzes patient complaint data on a regular basis and reports to key management personnel and to Quality Improvement.
5. Develops and maintains positive staff relationships both interdepartmentally and interdepartmentally.
6. Assists in referring patients to appropriate services and resources. 
7. Participates in and utilizes supervisor to assess level of competence as a patient representative, identifies areas for professional growth, and establishes mutually agreed upon goals.
8. Actively participates in appropriate committees, functions, or projects that have a primary focus on customer service, satisfaction, and/or polices.
9. Identifies and maintains current knowledge base regarding practice issues related to the population and needs of patients served.
10. Promotes and maintains open communication with all patients, regardless of age.

Other Duties

1. Performs all other duties as assigned. 

Competencies

1. Accountability: Accepts full responsibility for self and contribution as a team member; displays honesty and truthfulness; confronts problems quickly; displays a strong commitment to organizational success and inspires others to commit to goals; demonstrates a commitment to National Jewish Health. 
2. Building Trust: Interacting with others in a way that gives them confidence in one’s intentions and those of the organization.
3. Informing and Communicating: Clearly conveying information and ideas through a variety of media to individuals or groups in a manner that engages the audience and helps them understand and retain the message. 
4. Managing Conflict: Dealing effectively with others in an antagonistic situation; using appropriate interpersonal styles and methods to reduce tension or conflict between two or more people. Addresses conflicts by focusing on the issues at hand to develop effective solutions when disputes or disagreements occur; helps others resolve conflicts by providing impartial mediation when needed.
5. Impact and Influence: Using appropriate interpersonal styles and techniques to gain acceptance of ideas or plans; modifying one’s own behavior to accommodate tasks, situations, and individuals involved. Taking advantage of opportunities to make a difference and have an impact. When used well, the intended outcome of this competency is the creation of goodwill, trust, and respect while motivating people to want to follow you even when they don’t have to.
6. Business Acumen: Using economic, financial, market, and industry data to understand and improve business results; using one’s understanding of major business functions, industry trends, and own organization’s position to contribute to effective business strategies and tactics.

Supervisory or Managerial Responsibility
None

Travel
None

Core Values

1. Be available to work as scheduled and report to work on time.
2. Be willing to accept supervision and work well with others.
3. Be well groomed, appropriately for your role and wear ID Badge visibly.
4. Be in compliance with all departmental and institutional policies, the Employee Handbook, Code of Conduct and completes NetLearning by due date annually.
5. Fosters an inclusive workplace where diversity and individual differences are valued and leveraged to achieve the vision and mission of the institution.
6. Adheres to safe working practices and at all times follows all institutional and departmental safety policies and procedures. 
7. Wears appropriate PPE as outlined by the infection control policies and procedures.
8. Demonstrates compliance with all state, federal and all other regulatory agency requirements.

Minimum Qualifications

1. Education: Bachelors Degree required.
2. Work Experience: Minimum of two (2) years of recent patient advocacy experience required. 
3. Special Training, Certification or Licensure: None

Salary Range: $65,000 - $75,000

Benefits
At National Jewish Health, we recognize that our outstanding faculty and staff are the essence of our organization. For every aspect of health care, our employees are our greatest asset.
With that in mind, we have designed a valuable, comprehensive benefits package to meet the needs of our employees and their families.

• Medical Plans, Dental Plans and Vision Insurance
• Retirement Plan
• FSA and HSA
• Short and Long Term Disability
• Life Insurance and AD&D
• Voluntary Benefits, like Accident Insurance, Critical Care and Hospital Indemnity
• Sick and Vacation Paid Time Off
• Wellness Program
• Legal Plan