Corporate Director, Transition to Practice

Your job is more than a job

This job description describes the general nature and level of work performed by employees assigned to this department. It is not an exhaustive list of all duties and responsibilities, and LCMC Health reserves the right to amend responsibilities as organizational needs require.

GENERAL DUTIES

1. Enterprise Transition-to-Practice Strategy

Develop and lead an enterprise-wide nursing transition-to-practice strategy aligned with LCMC Health nursing, workforce, quality, patient safety, and clinical priorities. Establish a standardized framework connecting recruitment, onboarding, orientation, residency, specialty preparation, precepted practice, competency validation, and independent clinical practice.

Define enterprise-standard elements while allowing appropriate hospital-, specialty-, and population-specific requirements. Develop scalable pathways for new graduate, experienced, pediatric, adult, specialty, and internationally educated nurses. Evaluate current practices, identify unnecessary variation and duplication, and use evidence, regulatory requirements, accreditation standards, clinical outcomes, and workforce trends to guide program design, resource allocation, and continuous improvement.

2. Standardized Nursing Orientation & Transition Programs

Provide enterprise leadership for standardized nursing orientation and transition-to-practice programming. Establish consistent core curricula, learning objectives, orientation schedules, educational materials, competency expectations, and readiness criteria for nurses entering LCMC Health.

Lead centralized orientation programming for new graduates, international nurses, and other designated populations while coordinating appropriate adult and pediatric pathways. Partner with specialty leaders to develop transition pathways for medical-surgical/acute care, critical care, emergency services, perioperative services, women’s services, behavioral health, pediatrics, neonatal services, and other identified specialties.

Ensure integration of Epic and clinical technology training, medication management, equipment, patient safety, regulatory education, required certifications, and other essential preparation. Establish clear criteria for progression to unit-based orientation and independent practice.

3. Nurse Residency Program

Provide strategic and operational oversight of the LCMC Health Nurse Residency Program. Maintain evidence-based program standards and applicable accreditation requirements while ensuring consistent implementation across participating hospitals.

Establish program governance, curriculum, facilitator standards, participant expectations, evaluation methods, documentation, and outcome measures. Monitor participation, completion, retention, turnover, engagement, and other defined outcomes. Lead continuous improvement and maintain readiness for accreditation reviews, reporting, and audits. Integrate residency with unit-based orientation and clinical development.

4. International, Experienced & Specialty Nurse Transition

Develop transition-to-practice pathways for internationally educated nurses, experienced nurses, and nurses entering new specialties. Ensure international nurses receive appropriate preparation for U.S. healthcare delivery, LCMC Health practice, documentation, communication, escalation, patient safety, and professional expectations.

Differentiate onboarding based on experience, demonstrated competency, specialty, population, and regulatory requirements. Partner with specialty leaders and educators to establish minimum orientation and competency standards and identify opportunities for formal transition programs in high-need specialties.

5. Preceptor Program & Clinical Readiness

Develop enterprise standards for nurse preceptors, including qualifications, education, responsibilities, performance expectations, and ongoing development. Establish standardized tools for learning plans, progress evaluations, feedback, escalation, remediation, orientation extensions, specialty transfers, and readiness decisions.

Partner with hospital education and nursing leaders to build a sustainable preceptor pipeline, identify performance concerns early, and promote consistency in orientation and readiness decisions. Evaluate preceptor effectiveness and incorporate feedback into program improvement.

6. Competency & Education Integration

Partner with nursing education, clinical, and specialty leaders to integrate competency validation into transition-to-practice pathways. Establish standardized expectations for initial and ongoing competency validation, digital competency management, documentation, and progression toward independent practice.

Ensure orientation and transition programs align with nursing policies, clinical standards, equipment, workflows, scope of practice, and specialty requirements. Coordinate enterprise and hospital educators, faculty, clinical subject matter experts, and operational leaders. Establish content ownership, curriculum review cycles, faculty calendars, and standardized educational resources while reducing unnecessary duplication across hospitals.

Support effective use of simulation, classroom, virtual, online, and experiential learning.

7. Academic & Student-to-Practice Pipeline

Partner with Nursing Workforce, Talent Acquisition, academic institutions, clinical education leaders, and other stakeholders to strengthen the progression from nursing student to LCMC Health nurse.

Align student nurse technician, externship, clinical placement, graduate nurse, orientation, and residency pathways. Identify opportunities to improve graduate readiness, reduce gaps between academic preparation and clinical practice, strengthen academic partnerships, and create intentional pathways from student experiences to employment and long-term retention.

8. Measurement, Outcomes & Continuous Improvement

Develop and maintain an enterprise transition-to-practice scorecard measuring outcomes such as:

• New graduate RN retention at 6, 12, and 24 months
• Residency and orientation completion
• Orientation duration and extensions
• Time from hire to independent practice
• Preceptor availability, utilization, and satisfaction
• Orientee and preceptor satisfaction
• Competency completion
• Turnover during orientation and the first year
• International nurse transition and retention
• Specialty-transition outcomes
• Clinical readiness
• Program cost and resource utilization
• Relevant quality and patient safety outcomes

Analyze trends across hospitals, specialties, and cohorts and use data to determine whether programs should be expanded, redesigned, consolidated, or discontinued. Present outcomes and recommendations to nursing executives, CNOs, education leaders, and other stakeholders.

9. Governance, Standardization & Change Management

Establish and facilitate enterprise governance for transition-to-practice programs. Partner with enterprise nursing education councils, CNOs, hospital education leaders, specialty faculty, and subject matter experts to define decision rights and maintain clear accountability for enterprise standards versus local requirements.

Maintain standardized curricula, procedures, tools, documentation, and program expectations. Facilitate cross-hospital collaboration and ensure program changes follow appropriate governance and change-management processes.

10. Leadership & Relationship Management

Build strong relationships with CNOs, nursing directors, managers, educators, preceptors, and frontline clinical teams and serve as the connection between enterprise strategy and hospital implementation.

Partner with Talent Acquisition and Human Resources to align hiring, onboarding, orientation cohorts, and workforce pipelines. Collaborate with Clinical Informatics, Quality, Patient Safety, Regulatory, Accreditation, Infection Prevention, Pharmacy, and other departments to ensure transition programs reflect current clinical and regulatory standards.

Represent Nursing & Clinical Services on system committees and workgroups related to onboarding, workforce development, education, competency, and clinical readiness. Lead enterprise change through influence across a complex, multi-hospital health system.

LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES

The Corporate Director may provide direct leadership to centralized transition-to-practice personnel and functional leadership to educators and faculty participating in enterprise programs.

Responsibilities include:

• Establishing performance expectations and accountability
• Coaching and developing team members and faculty
• Creating a collaborative enterprise faculty model
• Optimizing educator capacity across LCMC Health
• Supporting succession planning and professional development
• Promoting standardization, innovation, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Managing assigned operating and program budgets
• Evaluating staffing and resource requirements based on program volume and organizational growth

KEY PARTNERSHIPS

Nursing: Chief Nurse Executive; Hospital CNOs; Corporate Nursing & Clinical Services; Nursing Directors and Managers; Nursing Education and Professional Development Leaders; Clinical Nurse Educators; Nursing Workforce Leadership; Clinical Specialty Leaders; Preceptors; Frontline Nurses.

Enterprise Partners: Talent Acquisition; Human Resources; Organizational Development; HRIS; Clinical Informatics; Information Technology; Quality & Patient Safety; Regulatory & Accreditation; Pharmacy; Infection Prevention; Employee Health; Academic Affiliations; Workforce Analytics; Finance.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

Education

• Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) required.
• Master’s degree in Nursing, Nursing Education, Healthcare Administration, Business Administration, Organizational Leadership, or related field required to be initiated within two years following appointment.
• Doctoral preparation preferred.

Licensure

• Current unrestricted Registered Nurse license required.
• Current Louisiana RN license or eligibility for Louisiana licensure required.

Experience

• Minimum five years of progressive nursing experience required.
• Minimum five years of nursing education, professional development, clinical leadership, workforce development, or related experience strongly preferred.
• Minimum two years of formal leadership experience preferred.
• Experience developing or leading nurse orientation, residency, transition-to-practice, competency, or professional development programs required.
• Multi-hospital health system experience strongly preferred.
• Experience with ANCC Practice Transition Accreditation Program, nurse residency accreditation, or comparable standards strongly preferred.
• Experience leading large-scale standardization or organizational change preferred.

Preferred Certifications

One or more preferred:

• Nursing Professional Development Certification (NPD-BC)
• Nurse Executive Certification (NE-BC or NEA-BC)
• Certified Nurse Educator (CNE)
• Project management, change management, simulation, or related certification

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES

The successful candidate will demonstrate:

• Strong knowledge of nursing professional development, transition-to-practice, nurse residency, preceptorship, competency assessment, and adult learning.
• Ability to translate strategy into operational programs across multiple hospitals.
• Strong program development, project management, analytical, and change-management skills.
• Ability to standardize practices while recognizing legitimate specialty, population, hospital, and regulatory differences.
• Ability to use workforce, education, clinical, quality, and financial data to drive decisions.
• Exceptional facilitation, relationship-building, stakeholder-management, and executive communication skills.
• Ability to influence leaders and teams without direct reporting relationships.
• Ability to manage competing priorities within a complex health system.
• Strong understanding of healthcare regulatory, accreditation, patient safety, and nursing practice requirements.
• Demonstrated commitment to nursing excellence, workforce development, clinical readiness, and the patient experience.

MEASURES OF SUCCESS

Success will be demonstrated through:

• Implementation of a consistent, phased LCMC Health nursing transition-to-practice model.
• Successful launch and sustainability of standardized enterprise nursing orientation.
• Consistent core curriculum with defined specialty and pediatric pathways.
• Strong nurse residency participation, completion, accreditation, and retention outcomes.
• Improved first-year RN retention and clinical readiness.
• Reduced unnecessary variation in orientation content and duration.
• Sustainable preceptor capacity and improved preceptor/orientee experience.
• Successful integration and retention of international nurses.
• Improved visibility into competency and orientation completion.
• Reduced duplication of educational development across hospitals.
• Effective use of centralized and hospital-based educator resources.
• Positive feedback from nurses, preceptors, educators, managers, and CNOs.
• Demonstrated contribution to workforce stability, quality, patient safety, and nursing excellence.

ROLE PHILOSOPHY

The Corporate Director, Transition to Practice is accountable for building and sustaining the enterprise system that prepares nurses for practice at LCMC Health—not simply delivering orientation classes.

The Director connects recruitment, onboarding, education, competency, preceptorship, residency, specialty preparation, and clinical readiness to ensure every nurse enters LCMC Health through an intentional, consistent, evidence-based transition that prepares them to practice safely, confidently, and successfully.

WORK SHIFT:

Days (United States of America)

LCMC Health is a community. 

Our people make health happen. While our NOLA roots run deep, our branches are the vessels that carry our mission of bringing the best possible care to every person and parish in Louisiana and beyond and put a little more heart and soul into healthcare along the way. Celebrating authenticity, originality, equity, inclusion and a little “come on in” attitude is the foundation of LCMC Health’s culture of everyday extraordinary

Your extras

• Deliver healthcare with heart. 
• Give people a reason to smile. 
• Put a little love in your work. 
• Be honest and real, but with compassion.  
• Bring some lagniappe into everything you do. 
• Forget one-size-fits-all, think one-of-a-kind care. 
• See opportunities, not problems – it’s all about perspective. 
• Cheerlead ideas, differences, and each other. 
• Love what makes you, you - because we do

You are welcome here. 

LCMC Health is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

The above job summary is intended to describe the general nature and level of the work being performed by people assigned to this work. This is not an exhaustive list of all duties and responsibilities.  LCMC Health reserves the right to amend and change responsibilities to meet organizational needs as necessary.

 

Simple things make the difference. 

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