Employee Health Nurse

Join the Medical Associates team as an energetic Employee Health Nurse! This role works closely with both Tri-State Occupational Health and Human Recourses to meet the occupational health and safety needs of our employees .

Location and Hours: Primarily at Tri- State Occupational Health but will be covering all Medical Associates locations. Monday - Friday, 4 or 4.5 days/week with some flexibility during peak times of the year to flex up to 5 days/week when projects/workload demands require.

What You Will Be Doing:

As an Employee Health Nurse, you will have the opportunity to utilize your nursing expertise working across the areas of employee health, infection control, safety and workers’ compensation, and will assist in leading, or in some cases will lead, ongoing and new initiatives in these areas. A full list of essential functions follows and is dependent on scope of licensure but high points of the role include:

• Coordinate care and help determine safe return to work for employees injured or who have exposures and become ill while on the job.
• Maintain focus on keeping our healthcare teams safe by planning, coordinating and delivering necessary immunizations for employees as well as ensuring employee safe practices and pre-placement/surveillance testing related to respiratory protection, bloodborne pathogens, and hazardous drugs in accordance with OSHA regulations and NIOSH/CDC guidelines.
• Assist in monitoring hazardous chemicals and drugs in the workplace and leading Hazardous Communications Program to keep staff a safe by ensuring training and maintenance of the HazCom SDS database and all other related duties that ensure OSHA compliance.
• As part of the Infection Control Committee and Safety Committee, act in co-assistant role to the Committee’s Chairs and carry out all responsibilities as outlined in the committee’s Charters, including incident tracking, recordkeeping, and reporting, meeting preparations/follow up, and policy review and writing. This will also lead into training which includes presentations for various employees in different meeting settings.
• You will challenge yourself by learning new things and staying up-to-date as state and federal employee health-related policies and laws evolve. You will help lead positive change in these areas as new programs or policies are needed.
  
  

Essential Functions & Responsibilities:

• Actively manage the delivery of care and return to work for work-related injured or ill employees. Monitor injury trends and treatments to ensure optimum care for work comp employees. Maintain summaries and written reports required for employee illness/injury reporting. Communicate with employees, work comp insurer, case managers, and attorneys to share information as appropriate under workers’ compensation regulations.
• Assist with implementing proactive and comprehensive companywide safety and infection control initiatives to ensure OSHA and other regulatory compliance. Such initiative include but are not limited to: researching and implementing various safety programs, development and leading training programs, coordinating/conducting ergonomic evaluations and accompanying documentation, conducting department safety and infection control inspections, managing Medical Associates safety data sheets (SDS) software and ensure the system is kept current, evaluating and appropriately acting on employee incident reports, ensuring employee/physician infection control and safety needs are met upon employment and periodically in accordance to OSHA surveillance programs and ensuring OSHA recordkeeping compliance
• Participate and act as the meeting leader for the safety committee. Primary duties will include: setting meeting agendas, developing meeting minutes, managing committee initiatives, developing and maintaining policies, conducting annual clinical department infection control inspections and other duties as assigned by committee chair.
• Plan and implement preventative health and safety measures for employees including vaccination programs, ergonomic assessments, and incident report follow up and tracking within the scope of licensure. Participate in other employee wellness initiatives as needed.
• Maintain current knowledge of OSHA, Iowa OSHA as well as other applicable state and federal standards and requirements.
• Complete all other assigned projects and duties.
  
  

Skills we are looking for :

• Registered Nurse (RN) or Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) with an active IA license. 2 years of nursing experience is desired but will train the right personal interested to start their career in the field of occupational health. Employee health and safety related experience is preferred, but not required.
• Self-starter who takes initiative
• Strong organization skills and follow through
• Problem-solver
• Great communicator (oral and written) and effective presenter
• Strong customer service skills.
• You have the ability to work autonomously and comprehend work needs and expectations in assignments with minimal management interaction.
• Eagerness to learn and take on new things while staying effective in balancing priority work needs.
  
  

Knowledge & Skills:

Education: Registered Nurse/Licensed Practical Nurse degree. Iowa RN/LPN license or multistate license.

Preferred: Certified Occupational Health Nurse or Nurse Case Manager.

Experience: Experience and skills that will help you succeed in this role: solid and varied nursing background, previous employee health and/or case management experience a plus but not required, Microsoft Office Suite skills (excel, word, powerpoint, outlook.). Policy development, training and presentation skills, active committee membership.

Interpersonal Skills: A significant level of trust and diplomacy is required, in addition to normal courtesy and tact. Work involves extensive personal contact with others inside and/or outside the organization, and/is usually of a personal or sensitive nature. Work may involve motivating or influencing others. Outside contacts become important (vendor reps, labs, offices, hospital, etc.) and fostering sound relationships with other entities (companies and/or individuals) becomes necessary.

Other Skills: Ability to travel to multiple locations. Ability to multi-task, work in a fast-paced environment. Good computer skills as well as strong written and verbal communication skills.