Under the direct supervision of the Director and Associate Director of Respiratory Care, the Respiratory Care Manager provides supervisory oversight to department operations and assigned Respiratory Services team members to facilitate interdisciplinary delivery of care to patients throughout the hospital continuum. This job ensures compliance with all regulatory requirements and accepted standards of practice.

The Respiratory Care Manager provides operational leadership and supervisory oversight for all aspects of respiratory care including inpatient services, specialty clinics, interventional pulmonary services, pulmonary function lab, the ECMO program, Children’s Tower, CHoR Brook Road and Tappahannock. Directly supervise education coordinator, respiratory therapy supervisors and other assigned team members.

The Respiratory Care Manager provides adherence to professional practice standards while promoting growth and development. This job collaborates with other disciplines within the Health System community to ensure comprehensive, high-quality, and safe care.

The Respiratory Manager provides quality customer service to patients of all ages, their families, visitors, medical staff, clinicians, and coworkers ensuring that everyone will be treated courteously, quickly and with respect. To establish and maintain an environmental control plan, coordinate materials management for the department, assist in monitoring clinic activities.

Essential Job Statements

Clinical Operations Management

Providing clinical operational leadership and oversight for all areas of respiratory care including inpatient services, specialty clinics, interventional pulmonary services, pulmonary function lab, and the ECMO program. The manager, must have a thorough understanding of adult and pediatric, cardiac, pulmonary, vascular surgery, organ transplantation procedures and circulatory support theory. The Manager considers factors related to safety, effectiveness, knowledge, and skill of team members, as well as the cost of planning and delivering care of ECMO operations.

Focus on growth, development, and directly supervising the education coordinators, respiratory therapy supervisors, and other assigned team members to the greatest capabilities of their scope of practice. Encourages teams to work collaboratively to effectively address clinical problems or dilemmas, monitors staff productivity to ensure patient need is being met. Maintains staff level to meet organizational and professional productivity benchmark, engages staff in program development to ensure state-of-the-art care is provided to patients, stays abreast of new developments in therapy practice, conveying pertinent information to staff for discussion and potential alteration in practice. Collaborates with other disciplines and assists staff in interdisciplinary collaboration to ensure smooth operations and reduce potential for duplication of services, analyzes the workflow to maximize productivity and efficiency.

Personnel Management

Performs all personnel-related tasks from “hiring to firing”, while following HR policies and meeting accreditation standards to ensure facility compliance and staff compliance with standards and expectations. Recruits staff to fill vacancies, endeavoring to hire the most capable and highly qualified individuals into positions, monitors staffing levels to ensure that staffing is sufficient to meet patient acuity requirements, completes and submits all required personnel documentation in a timely fashion. Ensure changes in personnel status and other issues are communicated and finalized per policy expectations, stays abreast of changes to personnel requirements, changing and amending documents as needed to meet the new expectations. Maintains personnel file in perpetually ready condition to ensure compliance with all regulatory requirements and to ensure staff information is accessible and accurate, collaborates with Human Resources to effectively retain current staff while recruiting new staff. Maintain a full workforce, coordinates new staff orientation, ensuring completion of initial competencies and smooth integration into the workforce, monitors the health of each work unit, proactively addressing any questions, issues or concerns to minimize disruption to the unit’s work. Promotes good communication between staff to ensure essential patient information is communicated, problems and issues are addressed, and teamwork is promoted, develops competency plans for all staff, facilitating staff achievement of competencies and ensuring competencies are met, as needed. Addresses poor performance or disciplinary issues with staff to correct deficiencies and improve quality of staff member’s work, consults with HR experts in new and unfamiliar matters to ensure compliance and fair practice.

Financial Management

Creates budgets for assigned accounts and monitors expenditures revenues for each account to achieve a positive bottom-line result, as assigned. Monitors expenses and works with staff to both identify and implement cost-saving strategies, communicates with Director and Associate Director about financial concerns, requesting permission for variances as needed and explaining plans for cost-saving measures, reviews budget reports each month, noting errors and variances, then taking appropriate steps to correct errors and explain variances, minimizes variances from budget to achieve a positive bottom line. Adheres to all policies regarding purchasing, including purchase of minor medical equipment, to ensure full compliance with financial expectations, ensures purchase orders are completed and processed correctly to ensure compliance and timely receipt of needed supplies. Works with staff to control waste and loss to keep expense within control, keeps complete financial records to support purchases, particularly with the purchase card, to ensure compliance, summarizes financial reports for staff, sharing them with staff periodically to educate them about revenue and expenditures. Monitors individual and team productivity, reporting to both individual staff and teams about their productivity performance, while engaging them in discussions on ways to enhance productivity.

Department Leadership & Outreach

Participates in strategic planning at the department, center, and team level to address new trends in practice, changes in workforce, new expectations and to ensure optimal programming to meet patient care needs. Collaborates with the department and health system leaders to promote high quality patient care and address barriers to efficient, safe, high-quality care. Engages in interdisciplinary leadership, including informal collaboration with leaders of other disciplines, as well as participation in other interdisciplinary activities, addresses quality and performance improvement practices, to ensure safe, high quality patient care and a safe work environment, monitors the environment of care to maintain compliance with regulatory standards and to provide the best possible environment for patient care and staff work. Promotes effective working relationships between faculty and hospital staff, to assist with education of students and to facilitate recruitment efforts, engage in variety of leadership tasks throughout the hospital environment as need, skills and interest dictate to support the Health System’s mission.

Improvements & Evidence Based Practice

Participates and works closely with members of the health team continuum in performance improvement and evidence-based practice as evidenced by: Collaborating with the Education Coordinator and/or staff members to facilitate Performance Improvement activities and support Performance Improvement projects. Utilizing the Performance Improvement process (FADE) to address clinical practice and system changes within the organization. Consistently monitoring patient satisfaction and customer feedback, taking prompt action on issues striving for service excellence. Utilizing the evidence-based Performance Improvement Process/Quality Improvement to address clinical practice and system changes.

Miscellaneous Responsibilities

Performs other duties as assigned and/or participates in special projects to support the mission of VCUHS and department. Provides assistance to team members. Accepts alternate assignments as required.

Patient Population: Demonstrates knowledge and related competencies of the principles of growth and development of the life span and possesses the ability to assess data reflective of the patient's status and interprets the appropriate information needed to identify each patient's requirements relative to their age, specific needs and to provide the equitable care needed as described in departmental policies and procedures. Neonates (0-4 weeks), Infant (1-12 months), Pediatrics (1-12 years), Adolescents (13-17 years), Adults (18-64 years), Geriatrics (65 years and older)  

Employment Qualifications

Required Education: Education, training and/or experience that has satisfied the eligibility requirements of the National Board for Respiratory Care (or its predecessor organization) Bachelor’s Degree* in Respiratory Therapy, Health Administration, Public Health or Business Administration or health related field from an accredited program. *Bachelors’ Degree in progress with completion within 6 months of hire.

Preferred Education: Master’s Degree in Respiratory Therapy, Health Administration, Public Health or Business Administration or health related field from an accredited program.

Licensing/ Certification
Licensure/Certification Required: Commonwealth of Virginia license as Respiratory Therapist, Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) credential from the National Board for, Respiratory Care (NBRC) Current Respiratory Therapist licensure in Virginia or eligible. Current credential Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) Current BLS

Licensure/Certification Preferred: Specialty credential such as RRT-ACCS or RRT-NPS ACLS, PALS and/or NRP preferred

Minimum Qualifications

Years and Type of Required Experience: Minimum of five (5) years of experience functioning as a Respiratory Therapist, including one (1) year of supervisory/management experience. Three (3) of five (5) years of experience must be in academic medical center environment if assigned to the Medical Campus

Other Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Required: Minimum of seven (7) years of experience functioning as a Respiratory Therapist, including three (3) years of supervisory/management experience. Five (5) of seven (7) years of experience must be in academic medical center environment if assigned to the Medical Campus

Cultural Responsiveness: N/A

Other Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Preferred: Minimum of ten (8) years of experience progressively more responsible Respiratory supervisory/management related work experience. Experience in tertiary Care, academic medical center. Experience as a respiratory care department manager.

Working Conditions: Periods of high stress and fluctuating workloads may occur. General office environment. May be exposed to physical altercations and verbal abuse. May be required to use physical restraints. Required to car travel to off-site locations, occasionally in adverse weather conditions. May be exposed to high noise levels and bright lights. May be exposed to limited hazardous substances or body fluids. * May be exposed to human blood and other potentially infectious materials. * May have periods of constant interruptions. Prolonged periods of working alone.

* Individuals in this position are required to exercise universal precautions, use personal protective equipment and devices, and learn the policies concerning infection control.

Physical Requirements 

Physical Demands: Lifting/ Carrying (0-50 lbs.), Lifting/ Carrying (50-100 lbs.), Push/ Pull (0-50 lbs.), Push/ Pull (50-100 lbs.), Stoop, Kneel, Squat, Crawling, Climbing, Balance, Bending  

Work Position: Sitting, Walking, Standing 

Additional Physical Requirements/ Hazards   

Physical Requirements: Manual dexterity (eye/hand coordination), Hear alarms/telephone/tape recorder, Reach above shoulder, Repetitive arm/hand movements, Finger Dexterity, Color Vision, Acuity – near, Acuity – far 

Hazards: Use of Latex Gloves, Exposure to toxic/caustic/chemicals/detergents, Exposure to moving mechanical parts, Exposure to dust/fumes, Exposure to x ray/electromagnetic energy, Exposure to high pitched noises, Gaseous risk exposure  

Mental/Sensory – Emotional    

Mental / Sensory: Strong Recall, Reasoning, Problem Solving, Hearing, Speak Clearly, Write Legibly, Reading, Logical Thinking  

Emotional: Fast pace environment, Steady Pace, Able to Handle Multiple Priorities, Frequent and Intense Customer Interactions, Noisy Environment, Able to Adapt to Frequent Change  

EEO Employer/Disabled/Protected Veteran/41 CFR 60-1.4.