Kansas Health System

Psych Mental Health Specialist

Kansas City, KS Full time

Position Title

Psych Mental Health Specialist

UKH Olathe Pavilion Main Campus

Position Summary / Career Interest:

The Psych Mental Health Specialist (PMHS) has a unique clinician role to integrate care across all settings where individuals with mental health issues or psychiatric disorders are found. The primary goal of the PMHS is continuous improvement of patient outcomes and nursing care for patients hospitalized for medical/surgical conditions who are living with psych and mental health issues. Key elements of PMHS practice are to create environments through mentoring and system changes that empower nurses to develop caring, evidence-based practices to alleviate patient distress, facilitate ethical decision-making, and respond to diversity. The PMHS is responsible and accountable for collaborative assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of mental health/illness states in context of disease management, health promotion, and prevention of illness and risk behaviors among individuals, families, groups, and communities.

Responsibilities and Essential Job Functions

  • Coaching Competency: Provide skillful guidance and teaching to advance the care of patients, families, groups of patients, and the profession of nursing. Provides health promotion and maintenance and teaches self-care activities.
  • Consultation and Collaboration Competency: Demonstrate patient, staff, or system focused interaction between professionals in which the consultant is recognized as having specialized expertise and assists consultee with problem solving. Work jointly with others to optimize clinical outcomes. The PMHS collaborates at an advanced level by committing to authentic engagement and constructive patient, family, system, and population-focused problem solving.
  • Ethical decision-making, moral agency, and advocacy: Identifying, articulating, and acting on ethical concerns at the patient, family, health care provider, system, community, and public policy levels.
  • Expert Clinical Practice Competency: Provide direct interaction with patients, families, and groups of patients to promote health or well-being and improve quality of life. Characterized by a holistic perspective in the advanced nursing management of health, illness, and disease states. Administer and monitor psychobiological treatments regimens and practice crisis intervention and stabilization.
  • Research/EBP Competence: Actively engage in thorough and systematic inquiry. Includes the search for, interpretation, and use of evidence in clinical practice and quality improvement to address clinical problem, as well as active participation in the conduct of research.
  • Systems Leadership Competency: Work within interdisciplinary teams. Demonstrates ability to manage change and empower others to influence clinical practice and political processes both within and across systems.
  • Must be able to perform the professional, clinical and or technical competencies of the assigned unit or department.
  • These statements are intended to describe the essential functions of the job and are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities. Skills and duties may vary dependent upon your department or unit. Other duties may be assigned as required.


Required Education and Experience

  • Bachelor Degree Nursing in Nursing from an accredited college or university.
  • Master's Degree in Nursing, Education, Clinical Nurse Leader, Instructional Design or related field from an accredited college or university within 3-5 years.
  • 3 or more years of hospital clinical experience.


Preferred Education and Experience

  • Previous Psych Mental Health patient care experience.


Required Licensure and Certification

  • Licensed Registered Nurse (LRN) - Multi-State - State Board of Nursing
  • Basic Cardiac Life Support (BLS or BCLS) - American Heart Association (AHA)


Preferred Licensure and Certification

  • Advanced certification in Psych Mental Health care.

Time Type:

Full time

Job Requisition ID:

R-47959

We are an equal employment opportunity employer without regard to a person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity and sexual orientation), national origin, ancestry, age (40 or older), disability, veteran status or genetic information.

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