Director, Education, Professional Practice and Nursing Excellence

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Day - 08 Hour (United States of America)

Location: Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley
Department: Nursing Excellence and Inquiry
Reports To: Assistant Chief Nursing Officer, Patient Safety, Accreditation and Nursing Excellence
FLSA Status: Exempt

A Brief Overview

The Director of Education, Professional Practice and Nursing Excellence provides strategic and operational leadership for nursing and interprofessional education, professional practice, workforce development, competency management, nursing excellence, evidence-based practice, research, and clinical inquiry across Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley.

The Director establishes integrated strategies, standards, and infrastructure that advance clinical competence, professional development, practice excellence, workforce readiness, and the generation and dissemination of new knowledge. The role ensures that education and professional practice programs align with organizational priorities, nursing strategic goals, clinical outcomes, regulatory requirements, and recognized standards of excellence.

In partnership with designated medical directors, the Director serves as the nursing and administrative dyadic leader for medical education and research. The dyad advances coordinated interprofessional education, simulation, clinical scholarship, academic partnerships, and research initiatives that strengthen collaboration among nurses, physicians, advanced practice providers, and other healthcare professionals.

What You Will Do

Strategic and Operational Leadership

• Establish and execute an organization-wide strategy for education, professional practice, workforce development, nursing excellence, research, and inquiry.
• Translate organizational and nursing priorities into measurable departmental goals, programs, and multiyear roadmaps.
• Lead departmental operations, including staffing, performance management, budgeting, resource allocation, contracts, technology, and program evaluation.
• Recruit, develop, and lead a multidisciplinary team responsible for education, professional practice, simulation, workforce development, nursing excellence, and research.
• Represent the department on organizational committees, leadership forums, and strategic initiatives.
• Establish performance measures demonstrating the clinical, workforce, operational, and financial impact of departmental programs.

Education, Professional Development and Competency

• Provide strategic oversight for nursing and interprofessional education, orientation, onboarding, continuing education, simulation, transition-to-practice programs, and specialty development.
• Establish organization-wide standards for learning-needs assessment, curriculum development, competency validation, program evaluation, and educational recordkeeping.
• Ensure education addresses changes in clinical practice, policies, equipment, technology, services, regulatory requirements, and identified performance gaps.
• Oversee learning-management-system administration, continuing-education processes, certification tracking, and required education reporting.
• Partner with clinical and operational leaders to ensure staff possess the knowledge and skills necessary to provide safe, high-quality care.

Professional Practice

• Provide leadership for nursing professional practice standards and the structures supporting consistent, evidence-based care.
• Promote integration of the Nursing Professional Practice Model into clinical practice, education, decision-making, orientation, and professional governance.
• Oversee professional practice consultation related to policies, clinical guidelines, standards of care, clinical pathways, new services, and changes in practice.
• Ensure alignment among policies, education, competencies, clinical workflows, and regulatory requirements.
• Lead structured change-management efforts that support implementation and sustained adoption of evidence-based practices and new models of care.

Nursing Excellence and Professional Governance

• Lead the organization’s nursing excellence strategy and preparation for a future nursing excellence designation.
• Oversee readiness assessments, performance monitoring, evidence development, communication, and improvement plans.
• Advance shared decision-making and professional governance structures that enable nurses to influence clinical practice, education, quality, and professional development.
• Develop strategies that support professional certification, academic advancement, mentoring, succession planning, recognition, engagement, and retention.
• Coordinate nursing excellence dashboards, reports, presentations, and communication of nursing accomplishments.
• Promote internal and external recognition of nursing outcomes, innovation, leadership, and scholarship.

Evidence-Based Practice, Research and Inquiry

• Establish an integrated infrastructure for evidence-based practice, nursing research, innovation, and clinical scholarship.
• Develop governance, consultation, education, mentorship, and standardized tools supporting evidence-based practice and research activities.
• Build staff capability to distinguish among research, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and performance improvement.
• Support project development, literature review, implementation, outcome measurement, regulatory review, and dissemination.
• Develop partnerships with research offices, academic institutions, clinical experts, and community organizations.
• Promote dissemination through presentations, posters, publications, conferences, research events, and professional forums.
• Measure research participation, evidence-based practice adoption, scholarly dissemination, and impact on clinical outcomes.

Physician and Interprofessional Partnership

• Serve as the nursing and administrative dyadic partner to designated medical directors for medical education and research, leading initiatives to strengthen clinical research infrastructure, improve education program oversight, and foster interdisciplinary collaboration across the system
• Develop shared strategies, governance, goals, and performance measures for interprofessional education and research.
• Coordinate nursing and medical education initiatives to strengthen team-based learning, reduce unnecessary duplication, and align clinical priorities.
• Partner with physician leaders to expand simulation, faculty and preceptor engagement, learner experiences, academic affiliations, clinical scholarship, and research activity.
• Support development of an organizational research roadmap and coordinated infrastructure for clinical research and clinical-trial activities.
• Promote collaborative inquiry and dissemination among nurses, physicians, advanced practice providers, and other healthcare professionals.

Workforce Development and Academic Partnerships

• Develop workforce strategies supporting recruitment, onboarding, transition to practice, retention, career advancement, and succession planning.
• Oversee nursing and non-nursing career pathways, student placements, clinical affiliations, internships, residency programs, and academic partnerships.
• Build pathways for employees to progress into specialty, educator, research, advanced-practice, and leadership roles.
• Strengthen preceptor, mentor, clinical-instructor, and faculty-development programs.
• Evaluate workforce programs using competency, retention, advancement, engagement, completion, and workforce-readiness outcomes.

Quality, Regulatory and Financial Stewardship

• Ensure departmental programs comply with applicable professional, regulatory, accreditation, licensing, and continuing-education requirements.
• Partner with Patient Safety, Quality, Accreditation, Infection Prevention, Risk Management, Human Resources, Nursing Informatics, and clinical leaders.
• Use clinical outcomes, workforce trends, regulatory findings, and learner feedback to identify priorities and evaluate effectiveness.
• Ensure appropriate education and competency responses to regulatory findings, corrective actions, high-risk processes, and new clinical services.
• Promote financially responsible program design, resource stewardship, and reduction of unnecessary variation and duplication.

Organizational Scope

The Director provides leadership for functions that may include:

• Nursing and interprofessional education
• Professional development practitioners and unit-based educators
• Nursing professional practice consultation
• Continuing education and learning-management-system administration
• Orientation, onboarding, residency, and transition-to-practice programs
• Simulation and clinical skills development
• Competency management
• Workforce and career-pathway development
• Academic affiliations and student programs
• Nursing excellence and professional governance
• Evidence-based practice, research, innovation, and dissemination

Education Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Nursing from an accredited college or university required.
• Master’s degree in Nursing, Nursing Education, Healthcare Administration, Organizational Leadership, or a related field required.
• Doctoral degree in Nursing, Education, Healthcare Administration, or a related field preferred.

Experience Qualifications

• Seven or more years of progressively responsible nursing experience required.
• Five or more years of leadership experience in nursing education, professional development, professional practice, nursing excellence, research, quality improvement, or a related clinical area required.
• Demonstrated experience leading teams, complex programs, organizational change, and cross-functional initiatives required.
• Experience with competency management, professional governance, transition-to-practice programs, simulation, evidence-based practice, or nursing research preferred.
• Experience supporting a nursing excellence designation preferred.
• Experience developing physician partnerships, interprofessional education, academic affiliations, or research infrastructure preferred.
• Experience with budgeting, resource allocation, program evaluation, and executive reporting required.

Licenses and Certifications

• Active California Registered Nurse license required.
• Certification in a relevant clinical, education, research, quality, or project-management specialty preferred.

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strategic and operational leadership across complex clinical and educational programs.
• Advanced knowledge of nursing professional development, adult learning, competency management, professional practice, and evidence-based care.
• Knowledge of nursing excellence frameworks, professional governance, professional practice models, research, and clinical scholarship.
• Ability to establish effective dyadic and cross-disciplinary relationships with nursing, physician, operational, research, and academic leaders.
• Demonstrated change-management, project-management, consultation, facilitation, and conflict-resolution skills.
• Strong financial, analytical, and resource-management capabilities.
• Ability to develop meaningful measures of clinical, educational, workforce, operational, and financial outcomes.
• Excellent written, verbal, presentation, influence, and executive-communication skills.
• Commitment to professional growth, inclusion, collaboration, and psychologically safe learning environments.
• Proficiency with learning-management systems, data-reporting tools, and Microsoft applications.

Stanford Health Care Commitment

The Director performs all responsibilities in alignment with Stanford Health Care’s commitment to an exceptional patient and family experience and consistently demonstrates C-I-CARE standards in interactions with patients, families, employees, learners, physicians, community partners, and colleagues.

Equal Opportunity Employer Stanford Health Care (SHC) strongly values diversity and is committed to equal opportunity and non-discrimination in all of its policies and practices, including the area of employment. Accordingly, SHC does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity and/or expression, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, political beliefs, marital status, medical condition, genetic information, veteran status, or disability, or the perception of any of the above. People of all genders, members of all racial and ethnic groups, people with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply. Qualified applicants with criminal convictions will be considered after an individualized assessment of the conviction and the job requirements.

Base Pay Scale: Generally starting at $87.31 - $116.42 per hour

The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, internal equity, experience, education, specialty and training. This pay scale is not a promise of a particular wage.