St. Joseph Hospital's Clinical Career Ladder program reinforces the organization's commitment to clinical excellence by recognizing and rewarding registered nurses who proactively expand their professional role with us. Our Professional Advancement Program uses the St. Joseph Health System RN Clinical Ladder as a job description and an evaluation tool. This exciting Clinical Career Ladder program consists of four classifications:
Advanced Beginner
– Less than one year of nursing experience. Provides nursing care in an effective and safe manner. Has begun to identify recurring meaningful situational aspects and apply these in new situations.
Clinical Nurse II (CN II)
Competent Clinician – Provides care in a skilled and effective manner, utilizing appropriate technical and decision-making skills. Is aware of all individual relevant aspects of a situation and plans are based on considerable conscious, abstract, analytical contemplation of the problem.
Clinical Nurse III (CN III)
Proficient Clinician – Provides nursing care efficiently and effectively using a high level of technical and organizational skills as well as demonstrating critical thinking ability. Performance is guided by maxims (internal instructions that make sense only with experience and deep understanding of the situation). Serves as a leader/resource for unit based clinical activity utilizing knowledge of current specialty to educate team members.
Clinical Nurse IV (CN IV)
Expert Clinician – Demonstrates a high level of knowledge/expertise in a specialty as well as general nursing. Is a leader/resource to nursing/healthcare team and engaged in unit/hospital activities. Has an intuitive grasp of each situation based on considerable experience and is able to accurately define the problem. Able to use highly skilled analytical tools when a new situation presents itself.
How our Clinical Career Ladder program works
There are specific competency statements and performance criteria for each level that describe behaviors that progressively broaden in scope and complexity of nursing practice. The program is designed to acknowledge the accomplishments of the bedside registered nurse. Advancement to the upper two levels is a voluntary process for those nurses in a benefit eligible position. The process requires an application and presentation to the Clinical Development Council.
Clinical Career Ladder applications are available through our Human Resources Department.