Transplant Nutrition Educator

Inova Fairfax Hospital is looking for a dedicated Transplant Nutrition Educator to join the Heart & Lung team. This role will be Full-Time; regular office hours, Monday - Friday; no on-call.

Inova is consistently ranked a national healthcare leader in safety, quality and patient experience. We are also proud to be consistently recognized as a top employer in both the D.C. metro area and the nation.

Featured Benefits:

• Committed to Team Member Health: offering medical, dental and vision coverage, and a robust team member wellness program.
• Retirement: Inova matches the first 5% of eligible contributions - starting on your first day.
• Tuition and Student Loan Assistance: offering up to $5,250 per year in education assistance and up to $10,000 for student loans.
• Mental Health Support: offering all Inova team members, their spouses/partners, and their children 25 mental health coaching or therapy sessions, per person, per year, at no cost.
• Work/Life Balance: offering paid time off, paid parental leave, & flexible work schedules.

Transplant Nutrition Educator Job Responsibilities:

• Develops, reviews, and revises organ-specific transplant nutritional assessment policies at least annually or as needed to comply with updates to best practices or regulatory changes. Evaluates literature, new products, and techniques, and develops standards/protocols to ensure consistent evidence-based therapies.
• Provides individual clinical, educational, and behavioral assessments specific to organ transplant appropriateness including frailty and functional assessments. Develops patient-specific medical nutrition therapy programs including assessment, instruction, and evaluation of program effectiveness. Conducts nutrition-focused physical exams; functional/frailty testing including but not limited to Fried frailty evaluation; pre/post-transplant evaluations (assess nutritional status, diet adherence, lab management, weight loss/gain).
• Provides recommendations regarding pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic therapies.
• Attends all meetings as needed including Quality, Ad-Hoc, Root Cause Analysis (RCA), and serves as a transplant nutrition expert resource to the interdisciplinary team. Participates in unit-based, disease-specific, and interdisciplinary rounds; participates in transplant selection committee weekly meetings; and acts as a consultant/resource to all members of the health care team.
• Represents the transplant nutritional assessment and education program in department, hospital, and system-level continuing education offerings. Provides nutrition lectures and in-services to nutrition and medical staff as assigned; develops and facilitates orientation for new staff, and acts as mentor for team members.
• Develops and facilitates patient education and support groups; may serve as Guest speaker for Transplant Support Group; provides biweekly pre/post-transplant education nutrition classes.
• Develops and facilitates quality assessment and practice improvement initiatives.
• Represents the transplant nutritional assessment and patient education program to regulatory surveyors as required.
• Collaborates with outside health services during patient evaluations: i.e. dialysis centers, physical therapy services, weight loss services, and other Inova departments.
• Indexes hospitalization: attends in-patient rounds, assesses malnutrition, blood glucose, renal electrolyte management, and nutrition support-enteral/parental.
• Completes for outpatients: Telehealth visits, glucose management, weight loss/gain management.
• Assesses Social Determinants of Health including food insecurity including community referrals as needed.
• Serves as liaison/ambassador between patients/units and exercises advanced decision-making on patients' behalf.
• Collaborates with and mentors dietetic interns/students.
• May perform additional duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor's degree in food and nutrition or dietetics
• Experience: 4 years of solid organ transplant nutrition experience
• Certification: Certified Clinical Transplant Dietitian (certifying body is NATCO) as a certification to be required within 12 months of date in the job; Registered Dietitian Upon Start