The Associate Director of Nursing (ADON) for Cardiac Operating Rooms provides strategic, clinical, and operational leadership for adult and pediatric cardiac surgical services. This role is accountable for nursing practice oversight, staffing strategy, case flow, and interdisciplinary collaboration to ensure safe, efficient, and high-quality perioperative care. The ADN partners closely with cardiac surgeons, anesthesiologists, perfusionists, nursing leadership, and support services to optimize patient outcomes, service efficiency, and staff development. The role requires strong clinical expertise in adult and pediatric cardiac surgery, demonstrated leadership in managing complex teams, and the ability to lead positive changes in a high-acuity, high-reliability environment. 

The Associate Director of Nursing is responsible for the management and oversight of nursing practice for assigned clinical areas.  S/he supports the overall strategic plan for program operations, personnel management, annual goals and objectives, and fiscal targets determined by the Vice President of Perioperative Services at Mount Sinai Hospital and perioperative system initiatives.  S/he serves as liaison to other clinical services provided, and ensures that personnel issues are managed in compliance with contractual agreements, and supports positive employee-management relationships. The Associate Director of Nursing is responsible for the management of nursing schedules, O.R. case flow and efficiency and staff satisfaction.  S/he is responsible for the attainment of patient safety goals, regulatory survey preparation, specialized training initiatives and continuing education.

The Associate Director of Nursing works in collaboration with nursing and physician leadership to ensure that the service maintains the highest standards of patient care and is responsive to the needs of the patient and family and the organization.  S/he initiates, develops, implements, and maintains mechanisms for collaboration between nurses, clinical staff members, physicians and other practitioners. S/He is a role model for professionalism, respect, and equity that fosters a culture of mutual respect and safety for patients and staff. 

• Bachelor of Science with a major in nursing and Masters degree in nursing or health-related specialty required.
• 3-5 years minimum demonstrated clinical and administrative expertise in area of nursing practice assigned

Licensing and Certification Requirements (if applicable)

• License: RN Issuing Agency: Department of Health/Office of Professions. Professional Board Certification in leadership and/or clinical specialty is preferred.

         Issuing Agency: New York State

• Name: Basic Life Saver (BLS) Issuing Agency: AHA
• Certification: NRP (Labor and Delivery, NICU dept)
• Certification: ACLS (in ED; PACU/ASU; ICUs; Telemetry Units; SDU; IR, Interventional Cardiology (CCL/EP/Echo); L&D; Endoscopy, and APN Adult Oncology
• Certification: PALS (in ED; PACU; IR; Peds ICU, and APNs Pediatric Oncology depts.)

Compensation Statement

The Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS) provides a salary range to comply with the New York City Law on Salary Transparency in Job Advertisements. The salary range for the role is $185,000.00 - $200,000.00 Annually. Actual salaries depend on a variety of factors, including experience, education, and hospital need. The salary range or contractual rate listed does not include bonuses/incentive, differential pay or other forms of compensation or benefits.

Clinical Leadership

1. Provides expert clinical oversight for adult and pediatric cardiac surgical nursing practice.

2. Ensures adherence to evidence-based standards, regulatory requirements, and institutional policies.

3. Oversees specialized cardiac competencies, including but not limited to:

   1. Open heart procedures

   2. Mechanical circulatory support

   3. Pediatric cardiac surgery

   4. ECMO and emergent cardiac cases

4. Leads patient safety initiatives, including participation in Root Cause Analyses (RCA) and corrective action planning.

5. Ensures readiness for regulatory surveys and sustained compliance with Joint Commission, NYS DOH, and internal quality standards.

Patient Experience 

1. Leads nursing practice using the tenets of the Professional Practice Model of Relationship Centered Care and the Care Delivery Model of Modified Primary Nursing for the promotion of the patient experience.

2. Demonstrates proficiency in all aspects of Purposeful Hourly Rounding (PHR) and role models expected behaviors.

3. Ensures the integration of PHR into clinical activities to enhance Relationship Centered Care.

4. Confirms that staff members round hourly on all patients by review of rounding validation data and observation of unit rounding. 

5. Validates Clinical Nurse Manager/Assistant Nurse Manager/Nursing Shift Manager/Senior Clinical Nurse competency in PHR and provides consistent, meaningful feedback with more focused feedback as needed.

6. Synthesizes quantitative and qualitative feedback regarding the patient experience and staff engagement to the Clinical Nurse Manager, Assistant Nurse Manager, Nursing Shift Manager, Senior Clinical Nurse and staff, as well as the Interdisciplinary Patient Care Team that leads to the development and implementation of an action plan.

7. Follows up on all patient concerns in a timely manner, provides service recovery as needed and escalates patient concerns as appropriate.

8. Demonstrates caring, respect, compassion, empathy and active listening through dialogue, body language, and actions at all times.

Quality and Safety

1. Designs, supports and leads a safe, therapeutic and efficient patient-centered care environment for professional practice.

2. Identifies and investigates issues or variances in practice/operations by participating in the RCA process and develops and implements corrective action plans.

3. Fosters a fair and open culture that encourages error and near-miss occurrence reporting.

4. Leads and participates in interdisciplinary quality improvement teams using the principles of high reliability.

5. Communicates with staff and leadership about unit progress, changes, and compliance with quality and safety metrics.

 6. Responds to escalations of potential safety hazards or gaps from best practice by correcting concerns following the institutional chain of command protocol. 

7. Monitors institutional information technology infrastructure and corrects gaps in clinical nurse documentation. 

8. Leads staff participation in quality and safety initiatives and mandated compliance measures. 

9. Demonstrates accountability for all unit quality and safety practices and compliance, and ensures maintenance of mandatory staff competency evaluations. 

10. Reviews unit progress, changes and compliance with quality and safety metrics with    Clinical Nurse Managers, Assistant Nurse Managers, Nursing Shift Managers, and Senior Clinical Nurses. 

11. Coaches/mentors Clinical Nurse Managers/Assistant Nurse Managers/Nursing Shift Managers/Senior Clinical Nurses in the escalation of potential safety hazards and validation of compliance with hospital and departmental policies and procedures and regulatory agency standards. 

12. Creates, maintains, and role models a professional practice environment through the facilitation of collegial interdisciplinary relationships, peer review, nursing research, innovation and joint practice arrangements through affiliating universities.  

OPERATIONS AND ADMINISTRATION 

1.  Supports implementation of the mission, vision, goals and objectives of the department, throughout the clinical service and individual patient care units.

2.  Provides administrative oversight to a service line, department or group of units to ensure that all activity (staffing, support services, interdisciplinary collaboration, resources and financial viability) supports the goals of the organization.

3.  Works collaboratively with Clinical Nurse Managers, Assistant Nurse Managers, Nursing Shift Managers, Senior Clinical Nurses, and physician dyads as well as all members of the healthcare team to develop a cohesive unit leadership group.

4.  Maintains service line compliance with all regulatory agency mandates, including the regulations of NYS DOH and The Joint Commission. 

5.  Oversees Clinical Nurse Managers, Assistant Nurse Managers, Nursing Shift Managers, and Senior Clinical Nurses to ensure 24-hour patient care delivery, throughput, staffing and processes to ensure efficient and effective operations. 

6.  Practices financial stewardship that aligns with the needs directed by the Vice President of Perioperative Services and system perioperative initiatives and budgets, including capital equipment allocation, budget variances, management of OT and vacancies according to MSHS financial goals.  

7.  Maintains patient/employee confidentiality in the management of information. 

8.  Monitors availability and maintenance of nursing equipment and supplies. 

9.   Evaluates Clinical Nurse Manager, Assistant Nurse Manager, Nursing Shift Manager, and Senior Clinical Nurse performance and mentors, coaches, counsels and disciplines staff as needed. 

10. Conducts leadership staff meetings with Clinical Nurse Managers, Assistant Nurse Managers, Nursing Shift Managers and Senior Clinical Nurses to ensure communication about progress, changes and compliance with all hospital policies and procedures and regulatory agency standards. 

11. Encourages, recognizes and rewards manager and staff participation in quality and safety initiatives, compliance and successes. 

12. Facilitates organizational change initiatives by using effective strategies. 

13. Leads a shared decision-making model by establishing a structure of shared governance, just culture and staff engagement in practice councils, departmental meetings and initiatives.  

14. Serves as chairperson/member in hospital-wide committees to represent nursing. 

 

Staffing Strategy & Workforce Management 

1. Accountable for cardiac OR staffing models for both the adult and pediatric programs, including coverage for days, evenings, nights, weekends, and on-call needs.
2. Oversees schedule management, staffing plans, and productivity targets in alignment with fiscal goals.
3. Supports the management of overtime, vacancies, recruitment, retention, and onboarding of cardiac OR nursing staff under the supervision of the VP of Perioperative services, MSH. 
4. Ensure staffing decisions comply with collective bargaining agreements and institutional policies.
5. Supports fair, consistent, and transparent staffing practices.

 

Professional Development

1. Evaluates and directs the environment of care to support clinical colleagues, patients and their families and members of the health care team. 

2. Advances clinical competence in nursing practice and leadership to progress from competent to expert. 

3. Develops and leads an environment that cultivates a professional image of nursing to colleagues, communication standards include styles and methods that demonstrate caring, respect, empathy and trust. 

4. Recommends and supports standards that ensure that ethical principles are incorporated into decision making for patient and family in collaboration with the clinical nursing staff and the health care team. 

5. Encourages and facilitates a spirit of scholarship, inquiry, life-long learning and innovation for self and others. 

6. Oversees and supports staff in shared decision making through facilitating specialty practice councils, and as a chairperson/ member of nursing department committees, and unit initiatives. 

7. Acquires and disseminates knowledge and skills relative to the role, patient population, clinical specialty and global or local health community needs

8. Serves as a professional role model and preceptor for new leadership, staff and students.

9. Establishes and implements a system that supports best practice patient care decisions, safe and efficient patient throughput and access to resources for the unit/clinical service area. 

10. Incorporates the values of research and evidenced based practice and its application to the environment of care. 

11. Contributes to the profession of nursing through leadership and participation in professional organizations.