Registered Nurse-Street Health - LifeLong Medical Care

LifeLong Medical Care is recruiting to fill a full-time (40hr per week)Street Nurse position within the innovative Street Medicine program. Examples of our work can be seen in a variety of local and national news articles, particularly as it pertains to our response the COVID-19 pandemic within the population of people experiencing homelessness in Alameda County. The Street Nurse leads a multidisciplinary team that includes medical providers,  social workers, and case managers to assess, treat, and support the holistic needs individuals living in encampments and on the streets experiencing homelessness. This position will be deployed in one of the six service areas in Northern Alameda County that LifeLong Street Medicine serves as part of its partnership with Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless. 

**Candidate must live locally in the Bay Area.**

The Street Nurse role is a dynamic position requiring a combination of excellent leadership, clinical, and patient engagement skills. The Street Nurse is essential to organizing the workflows for the team by prioritizing patient care based on acuity and complexity, the resources available to support patients, and the diverse skill sets of the other team members.

Each team spends approximately 20 hours/week conducting field-based outreach and care by meeting with patients in encampments or streets. The Street Nurse is responsible for conducting nursing assessments, triaging medical, behavioral health, and social service needs, developing care plans, coordinating care, and working with the team’s medical provider to support the patient’s health goals. The Street Nurse works with a variety partner organizations by providing transitional healthcare until a patient has stabilized enough to transition to others systems of conventional care (e.g. primary care and/or a community mental health clinic, intensive case management program, housing) or has been placed in a higher level of care. The Street Nurse is also responsible for overseeing quality measures to ensure the optimal care is given across access, clinical, and experiential benchmarks.

The Street Nurse will be joining a 22-person program that is at the cutting edge of field-based medical care for our most vulnerable Alameda County residents. The Street Medicine team is made of staff from diverse backgrounds, professional paths, and lived experiences that have all informed their desire to do this work. We encourage candidates with diverse, non-conventional backgrounds and/or with lived experience relative to working with people experiencing homelessness to apply.

This position is represented by SEIU-UHW. Salaries and benefits are set by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), and an employee in this position must remain a member in good standing of SEIU-UHW, as defined in the CBA.

About us:

As a Federally Qualified Health Center in Northern California with over 45 years of dedicated service to the community, LifeLong serves over 66,000 patients in the East Bay Area's socio-economically underserved regions. We provide medical, dental, behavioral health, and school-based services at more than 15 primary care sites across Oakland, Berkeley, and West Contra Costa County. From opening a residential respite program for homeless persons discharged from the hospital to offering free COVID testing to the community, we are innovative and responsive to our times' social and medical needs. We provide an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity and with which our patients can identify. To this end, we seek candidates who reflect the diversity of the East Bay communities we serve.

LifeLong Medical Care is an equal opportunity employer. We strongly encourage applications from women, people of color, bilingual and bicultural individuals, and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. Applicants shall not be discriminated against because of race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity, age, disability, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, color, marital status, or medical condition. Reasonable accommodation will be made so that qualified disabled applicants may participate in the application process. If you're looking for accommodation, please let me know when you apply.

Benefits:

Compensation: $116,480-$129,840 year, depending on years licensed, additional 3% pay increase for candidates with a Master’s degree. Excellent benefits, including medical, dental, vision (including dependent and domestic partner coverage), generous leave benefits including nine paid holidays, Flexible Spending Accounts, 403(b) retirement savings plan, and commuter benefits. Loan repayment (HPSA scores = 19) is possible through the National Health Service Corp and State LRP programs. To learn more, visit the following link: www.nhsc.hrsa.gov 

Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccine Policy:

By LifeLong Medical Care's commitment to provide and maintain a workplace that is free of known hazards, we have adopted a Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccine Policy to safeguard the health of our employees and their families; our patients and visitors; and the community at large from infectious diseases, that vaccinations may reduce. This policy will comply with all applicable laws and is based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Order of the California State Public Health Officer. Unless a reasonable medical or religious accommodation is approved, all employees must receive COVID-19 vaccinations.

Essential Functions

• Provides nursing care outreach in encampments and streets to highly-vulnerable people experiencing homelessness.
• Implements care plans and provides urgent and primary care services within Registered Nurse scope of practice.
• Collaborates in managing common health care problems present in homeless populations including but not limited to the following:
  • Diseases of neglect and exposure, such as nutritional problems, dental disease, hypothermia, and/or dehydration.
  • Substance abuse related illness, such as permanent sequelae of substance abuse including brain dysfunction, liver disease, lung and heart disease.
  • Cognitive impairments.
  • Chronic illnesses and conditions often presenting in advanced stages due to absence of prior healthcare, such as diabetes, hypertension, COPD, hypertension, visual impairments, and/or dental problems.
  • Infectious diseases, such as HIV, TB, STD's, respiratory infections, infestations (scabies, lice, etc.), skin infection, chronic viral hepatitis, MRSA, clostridial infections, and/or rat-borne, louse-borne, or other emerging diseases.
  • Musculoskeletal problems, such as, foot diseases, post-traumatic arthritis, and/or chronic pain syndromes.
  • Psychiatric disease, such as underlying severe mental illness, undiagnosed mental illness, mental illnesses resulting from homelessness, and/or post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Performs timely client/patient telephone advice and triage assessment with clinical competence and judgment for urgent/drop-in-care.
• Provides education and counseling on a variety of topics (e.g., pregnancy counseling, contraception, HIV, diabetes, hypertension, asthma, infestations, mental health conditions, substance use disorders, and specific diagnostic procedures) including but not limited to patients receiving Medications Assisted Treatment (MAT).
• Performs initial and continued assessment of client health status, immunization, and TB screening, based on established protocols.
• Administers immunizations), medications and blood draws consistent with current guidelines and established protocols.
• Provides outreach, information and referral, care coordination and case management services as appropriate for Street Medicine and Shelter Health and collaborating partners.
• Implements innovative interventions and models to improve care of high-risk/high-vulnerability individuals experiencing homelessness.
• Uses multiple EMR platforms to gather patient information; documents appropriately in electronic medical record; maintains medical records.
• Provides client care in a manner that is both non-discriminatory and non-judgmental.
• Communicates effectively with the client/patient, clinic staff, the public at large and departmental staff in a non-discriminatory manner.
• Participates in Street Medicine clinical case conferences and other case conferences and meetings.

Qualifications   

• Ability to effectively coordinate care with medical assistants and other support staff, encourage and nurture development and growth, to build a strong and productive team.
• Commitment to the provision of primary care services for the underserved with demonstrated ability and sensitivity in working with a variety of people from low-income populations, with diverse educational, lifestyle, ethnic and cultural origins.
• Strong organizational, administrative and problem-solving skills, and ability to be flexible and adaptive to change.
• Ability to effectively present information to others, including other employees, community partners and vendors.
• Ability to seek direction/approval on essential matters, yet work independently with little supervision, using professional judgment and diplomacy.
• Work in a team-oriented environment with a number of professionals with different work styles and support needs.
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal, and written skills.
• Conduct oneself in internal and external settings in a way that reflects positively on LifeLong Medical Care as an organization of professional, confident and sensitive staff.

Job Requirements          

• Current and valid California Registered Nurse license and BLS
• Proficient in Microsoft office suite
• Electronic health records, Epic preferred
• Minimum of one year experience in community health as an RN
• Possession of current driver’s license and insurance.   
• Demonstrated ability and sensitivity to providing services to persons who are disabled, experiencing homelessness, substance affected, living with HIV or AIDS, and/or have serious and persistent mental illness.

 Job Preferences

• Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing
• Lived experience relative to working with people experiencing homelessness (e.g. formerly homeless, social or behavioral health services consumer, criminal justice system involvement, foster care involvement, close family-member of someone with these experiences)

Physical Demands and Work Environment         

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to stand, walk, and sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel and reach with hands and arms; talk and hear. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.  The employee frequently works with a video display terminal for prolonged periods; vision abilities include close vision and ability to adjust focus. 

While performing the duties of this job, the employee regularly works outside amongst environmental conditions and inclement weather.  The employee may be required to attend evening meetings, travel and work evenings or weekends.

Supervisory Responsibility         

• This position may have direct staff supervisory responsibilities.