Job Summary:
Reporting to the Director, Organ Donation and Hospital Development within the BC Transplant Society (BCTS), the In-Hospital Organ Donation Coordinator acts as on-site hospital resource for all aspects of organ donation and is responsible for implementation, within the hospital setting, of an effective donation program. This includes: facilitating the incorporation of the donation philosophy and process into end-of-life care within the hospital, ensuring the option of donation is offered appropriately to every BC resident, supporting families through the donation process by enabling them to make an informed decision and striving to provide a positive and meaningful donation experience, assisting the healthcare provider team in the management of the deceased donor, coordinating many aspects of the donation process including suitability assessment of organs for transplantations and facilitation of on-site surgical recovery of organs, providing donor family support following a donation case, supporting the work of the hospital’s Donation Committee, raising awareness of donation issues, and contributing to continuous quality improvement by collecting and reporting data, and providing on-going education to the hospital community.
The job involves three overall dimensions: clinical dimension, involving guiding the medical management of the deceased donor and detailed review and interpretation of relevant medical/social data; support dimension, involving empathic listening and response to a variety of people experiencing grief and related emotional trauma; and an educational and quality improvement dimension, primary role of the work of the In-hospital Organ Donation Coordinator. As an integral part of the organ procurement team, the In-hospital Organ Donation Coordinator participates in a 24-hour call rotation.
Duties/Accountabilities:
Scope and Complexity
Decisions made by this position impact the accuracy, reliability and acceptability of further processes within the BCTS and the assigned hospital, affect the well-being of hospital staff, donor families and waitlisted transplant candidates, and affect the delivery of donation services to the assigned hospital and province-wide. On-going progress reviews are provided to both the BCTS supervisor and the hospital liaison, with more extensive consultation with the BCTS supervisor required to discuss issues that affect the feasibility and/or effectiveness of meeting the position's objectives.
Physically situated within the assigned hospital, the position possesses inherent challenges by virtue of being an external non-contract clinical placement within a healthcare facility. In conjunction with the Director, Organ Donation and the assigned hospital liaison, the In-hospital Coordinator develops and implements programs to facilitate implementation of the hospital's Organ Donation Program. Guided by relevant policies, protocols, standards of practice within the BCTS and the assigned hospital, the In-hospital Coordinator is self-directed in the support and evaluation of hospital Donation Program goals and objectives.
Communications
The position requires compassionate, dedicated and professional leadership skills. As a representative of the BCTS and the ‘face’ of organ donation within the hospital, the In-hospital Organ Donation Coordinator is required to establish effective working relationships within the multi-disciplinary hospital environment. This requires communication with peers and support-service providers at the BCTS, and with hospital clients: donor families, critical care nursing and medicine, transplant surgery and anesthesia, providers of diagnostic services, committee members, and allied healthcare providers within the hospital setting. This communication consists of listening to others, exchanging and conveying information, clarifying information by asking and answering questions; influencing donation stakeholders to bring about a change in their actions or thoughts through persuasion by exchanging factual information; acting as a resource to the assigned hospital and consulting to clients within the assigned hospital by providing professional advice and formal instruction regarding best practice protocols and guidelines; reviewing cases and compiling, analyzing and presenting data for the purposes of education and quality improvement; and negotiating and facilitating consensus within the donation and transplantation stakeholder community.
Duties/Accountabilities
1. Provides donation case management by providing consultation, guidance and advice on practice issues to hospital staff including physicians, nurses, social workers and pastoral care staff, as the hospital resource on organ donation; acting as a clinical resource for the attending care team, following brain death, with regard to optimal maintenance of the potential donors to ensure maximization of organ potential; and ensuring documentation and fulfillment of legal, ethical and medical criteria for organ retrieval including brain death and consent for organ donation. Organizes investigative screening procedures and diagnostic tests with laboratories, agencies and hospital departments; provides such information to transplant programs as to enable organ acceptance and allocation; arranges for on-site surgical organ recovery by maintaining communication links between donor care providers, and the recovery and transplant teams; and participates in de-briefings and case reviews, providing follow-up information to the attending healthcare staff regarding outcomes of the donation case.
2. Supports families through the donation process by meeting with families of potential organ donors in the hospital setting for the purpose of providing them with information regarding organ donation and enabling them to make an informed donation consent decision; attending to the family’s need for support and information regarding the donation process; and providing follow-up support to the donor family, in accordance with the BCTS Donor Family Support Program.
3. Provides ongoing education and contributes to quality improvement by delivering and evaluating training/education programs to staff in the assigned hospital in order to incorporate the donation process into the hospital’s end-of-life care and to establish and maintain a consistent standard of practice related to organ donation; acting as an organ donation awareness resource within the hospital community by providing information about the hospital’s Organ Donation Program; participating in de-briefings and case reviews, providing follow-up information to the attending healthcare staff regarding evaluation of the donor identification and referral processes; and contributing to research and quality improvement activities by collecting, analyzing and reporting data related to the hospital’s Organ Donation Program.
4. Participates in training and on-going professional development within the relevant areas of practice and trains and monitors other team members as required.
5. Performs other related duties as assigned to support the mission vision and values of the BCTS and the hospital’s Organ Donation Program.
Qualifications:
A level of education, training and experience equivalent to a Bachelors degree in a Health Sciences Program, and five (5) years of critical care or organ donation experience; certification or equivalent experience in the education of public and health-care personnel. Designation as a healthcare professional in the critical care setting (nursing, respiratory therapy, social work, Physician's Assistant, Nurse Practitioner) preferred.
Demonstrated skills in conflict resolution in the healthcare setting. Demonstrated competence in the areas of program planning and implementation in a multi-disciplinary context. Demonstrated ability to establish effective relationships with diverse stakeholders. Able to withstand regular periods of intense activity, including performing work requiring simultaneous processing of information with multiple interruptions, and periods of concentrated listening. Demonstrated ability to stay calm, composed and focused under extremely emotional and tense conditions, to be empathic to the needs of families and healthcare professionals undergoing emotional trauma, sensitive to spiritual and cultural contexts of care, and interact effectively with individuals who are enduring personal trauma and grief. The successful candidate is able to recognize and maintain appropriate boundaries between the traumatic events, the people involved, and their personal life. Comprehensive knowledge of adult education principles and methods. Highly motivated, self-directed with excellent organizational skills. The successful candidate is able to function collaboratively within an interdisciplinary team. Excellent interpersonal skills and verbal and written communications, including confidence in public speaking. Experience working in the standard suite of office computer programs. Fluency in a language other than English an asset.
