Operating theater Nursing Care – Mobile Implementation Officer (m/f/x) – MSF Belgium

Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF) is an international humanitarian aid organization that provides assistance in more than 60 countries to populations in distress, to victims of natural or manmade disasters and to victims of armed conflicts, without discrimination and irrespective of origin, religion, creed or political affiliation.

Operating theater Nursing Care – Mobile Implementation Officer (m/f/x) – MSF Belgium

Context

Nurses in MSF represent around half of the health care workforce, they have an essential role in providing person-centered care and nursing care is a key transversal component of care. Within hospitals, MSF has a wide range and volume of activities often with increasing technical and organizational complexity. MSF Operational Centre Brussels wants to ensure adequate, sustained, effective, and quality nursing care across MSF interventions in relation to surgical activities and related hospital functions. The Mobile Implementation Officer (MIO) specifically helps project teams with implementation of nursing care activities and/or building capacity of existing staff’s knowledge in the management of patients. There is a focus on standardization, simplification, and on what MSF considers “the essentials” which includes organizational aspects, the hospital environment, ancillary services and diagnostics.

Scope of responsibilities

The MIO will work in close collaboration with key project and operational counterparts, as well as nursing care, surgical, and anesthesia referents to asses and prioritize quality improvement activities for clinical and organizational aspects of nursing care in relation to the work of the Operating Theater (OT) team and their associated interactions.

This means the MIO will support projects to:

• Evaluate the quality of care with a focus on patient safety primarily in the OT, post anesthesia care unit and/or recovery room against best practices, protocols and guidelines in line with MSF recommendations (including the use of the Aldrete scoring system).
• Evaluate and improve patient flow and handover (ISBAR) with surgeons and OT manager
• Optimise charting and documentation of patient care including the organization, collection and analyses of data on surgical activity, with a focus on nursing indicators
• Ensure instruments and equipment are used according to recommendations and accountability for consumables are accurate during surgery
• In collaboration with surgical and anaesthesia referents, evaluate supplies and medical equipment to maintain relevant project standard lists and inventories, as well as projecting needs for timely ordering
• Optimise the planning and organisation of nursing related activities including workforce planning, induction and onboarding of new OT nursing staff.
• Maintain effective interaction between the OT and the Emergency Room, Intensive Care and Inpatient Departments.
• Ensure the OT block is well prepared for the project’s mass casualty plan including efficient communication during an incident as well as the OT team awareness of new/unscheduled emergency cases.
• Ensure teams have access to relevant trainings for nursing staff (supporting necessary endorsements)
• Develop prioritized and phased implementation strategies that will also enable monitoring and evaluation of nursing care in the OT (in collaboration with the Nursing Care referent).

The MIO will also support projects through:

• Analysing development needs; mentoring and coaching nurses, providing targeted training directly and supporting an education calendar for the OT and allied services of recovery room and sterilization
• Supporting the implementation of new protocols, guidelines and medical devices/material linked to nursing care in priority fields, using a horizontal approach
• Writing nursing care action plans (through participatory approach) and visit reports that have, a comprehensive strategy, specific objectives, clear priorities and identified tools for the correct deployment of the strategy
• Ensuring all nurses in the projects supported have access and can use standard resources from the library of Nursing Care Working Group SharePoint (Manual of Nursing Care Procedures) with advice on how to contextualise strategies and tools for competency development
• Working closely with Infection Prevention Control team, to evaluate and establish optimal IPC practices for disinfection, sterilisation and aseptic techniques as well utilising and auditing against standard check lists to ensure universal compliance with IPC measures.
• Promoting training and tools for patient safety and quality improvement also with a focus on medication safety

In addition, the MIO will:

• Remain flexible to identify and support other nursing needs
• Support the community of practice for peer support among Nurses
• Contribute to the development and revision of guidelines and policies as required

Place in the organisation

• The nursing care MIO is supported and line-managed by the Nursing Care referent.
• The MIO will liaise with the surgical, anaesthesia, intensive and critical care referents, the IPC team, hospital management and operational colleagues in headquarters, coordination and projects. They will directly support the OT nurse supervisor/managers at project level and remotely ensure transparency with relevant colleagues.

REQUIREMENTS

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor in Nursing is required
• OT nurse diploma or OT nurse/ perioperative nursing certification is an asset
• Recent professional experience of at least 4 years as a circulating nurse, in an operating theater for general and orthopaedic surgery is required. Additional experience in gynecologic and/or trauma surgery is an asset.
• Experience and training in post-anaesthesia care is desirable
• 4 years of professional field experience with MSF or comparable organization in low resource settings or humanitarian contexts (excluding internships) is required
• Demonstrable skills in teaching, learning, mentoring and quality improvement is required

Personal & Interpersonal skills

• Capacity to work within agreed timelines and ability to prioritise and organise activities/tasks
• Strong analytical and synthetic skills
• Ability and willingness to take initiative, work autonomously, propose innovative ideas and find pragmatic solutions
• Good team-player and strong management skills
• Capacity to influence and persuade
• Good communication skills: active listener, communicate clearly and effectively, sense of diplomacy

Other requirements

• Good knowledge of Microsoft Office
• Proficient in English (oral and written) is required and other languages are a strong asset (especially French or Arabic)
• Willingness to travel overseas under difficult conditions in some insecure and remote locations

CONDITIONS

• Expected starting date: 1st October 2022
• Location (*): Brussels or any other MSF Operational Center Brussels hub,
• Contract type: Fixed-term contract
• Contract duration: 12 months
• Full-time
• Up to 70 % of the time in the field
• Adhere to the MSF principles and to our managerial values: Respect, Transparency, Integrity, Accountability, Trust and Empowerment
• Adhere to the MSF Behavioral Commitments

(*) The contractual terms and conditions will be established according to the country of domicile/residence and place where the candidate will be based and in respect of MSF standard function and salary grids

(*) The final outcome depends on local legal limitations (residency, work permit, visa, etc.) and on the agreement with the hosting MSF office in these locations.

Deadline for applications: 11 September 2022