Nursing Program Leader - Level 1 Trauma - Department of Surgery

Nursing Program Leader
- Level 1 Trauma
- Department of Surgery

The Nursing Program Leader provides strategic, system-level leadership for specialized trauma and burn services, advancing nursing practice and ensuring high-quality patient care across programs verified by the American College of Surgeons and the American Burn Association. This role directs multidisciplinary collaboration to develop and implement evidence-based guidelines, supports research through expert consultation and trauma/burn registry data, and delivers specialized education to internal teams, external partners, and statewide emergency care systems.

Responsibilities include coordinating major program site visits, evaluating clinical technologies, mentoring students across disciplines, and representing the organization in regional, state, and national trauma system initiatives. The position also leads quality improvement efforts in partnership with medical leadership, ensures regulatory and policy compliance, and oversees human resource functions such as creating new roles, supervising performance, and managing all aspects of the trauma/burn registry and associated personnel.

• Provide leadership for nursing practice and patient care at the service line, division, or departmental level.
• Ensure programs meet and maintain verification standards from the American College of Surgeons and the American Burn Association.
• Lead, organize, and manage extensive site visits for each program every three years.
• Assure standards of care and staff competency across trauma and burn services.
• Oversight of the trauma and burn programs including registry, quality and performance improvement programs.
• Development and implementation of clinical protocols and practice management guidelines.
• Supervise data collection, coding, scoring and validation, reporting and analysis to ensure that the data drives all aspects of the trauma program (e.g., clinical care, research, benchmarking, performance improvement and finances).
• Work with multidisciplinary teams and administration to assure that the trauma and burn programs meet criteria and remain verified by The American College of Surgeons and The American Burn Association.

• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to develop, evaluate, and implement evidence-based best practices for trauma and burn patients.
• Mentor students across multiple healthcare disciplines.
• Guide development and implementation of multidisciplinary clinical guidelines through ongoing program and patient evaluation.
• Lead evaluation and implementation of clinical technologies that support patient care.
• Work with multiple disciplines including nursing to support evidence based best practices for our patients.
• Participate and provide expertise, support and data from the trauma/burn registry to researchers from many different disciplines.

• Provide expert-level specialty education to healthcare staff, students, residents, and external partners.
• Educate and engage multidisciplinary hospital personnel, partner hospitals, EMS providers, and stakeholders in Iowa’s Trauma System.
• Partner with EMSLRC to provide TNCC courses internally and regionally.
• Coordinate Resource variable Trauma Team Development Courses (RTTDC) at referral hospitals.
• Participate in statewide trauma system initiatives, including but not limited to the State Trauma Coordinator’s Council, System Evaluation Quality Improvement, Trauma Registry activities, Injury Prevention, and serving as a site reviewer for hospital verifications.
• Contribute to education, professional development, and the advancement of emergency/trauma nursing initiatives on a national level.
• Ensure staff involved in the care of injured patients meet educational requirements of the trauma and burn program.
• Plan, coordinate and evaluate trauma/burn related educational programs for nursing orientation and ongoing educational needs for nursing staff.
• Direct the trauma program’s community trauma education and injury prevention efforts, aligning with local, regional and national resources, programs…