Nurses who desire a career in skilled nursing need a combination of different skills to care for this very specific patient population. When healthcare organizations recruit nurses for skilled nursing they look for certifications and experience necessary to the job. Making sure your resume highlights these skills means you’ll be at the top of their candidate list. Here, we help you structure your resume so that your skilled nursing skills stand out.
What Exactly is Skilled Nursing?
Skilled nursing refers to high level medical care that involves patients who are recovering from a surgery, an injury, an illness, or have a chronic condition that limits mobility. Many skilled nursing facilities also provide care for geriatric patients who need round the clock attention.
When patients require a stay at a post-surgical rehabilitation facility they typically have a care team to oversee their progress. Patients recovering and rehabilitating from major orthopedic surgeries such as hip replacement, knee surgery, or shoulder surgery, patients who have recently had spinal surgery, and complex cardiovascular procedures often need therapy to regain mobility.
Before these patients can return home they need 24/7 nursing care, intense physical therapy, occupational therapy, and a high level of pain management. Geriatric patients who live alone are particularly dependent on skilled nursing to regain their independence and return to their home. Some seniors remain in skilled nursing facilities when they require 24/7 monitoring and complex care for chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and dementia. Additionally, those who are at an increased risk for falling or can no longer perform daily activities on their own may require skilled nursing.
Why Would Someone Need Skilled Nursing Care
Of course, there are seemingly countless scenarios and combinations of reasons someone may need skilled nursing care. Here are the key reasons patients require skilled nursing.
- Rehabilitation and Recovery: Patients assigned to skilled nursing for rehabilitation and recovery often stay for shorter periods. Their stay addresses the need to rebuild physical strength, recover from an injury or surgery, or regain mobility and speech through physical, occupational, and cognitive therapies.
- Specialized Care: If a patient requires complex care for chronic conditions requiring a ventilator, wound care and management, and medication management such as an IV, their doctor refers them to a skilled nursing facility.
- Safety: Patients who have significant mobility challenges, are at increased risk for falling, or have cognitive impairments like dementia or Alzheimer’s need 24 hour care for their own safety. Accidents, wandering off and other behavioral issues are more easily monitored in a skilled nursing facility.
- Custodial Care: Some patients come to skilled nursing when they can no longer manage their daily activities like bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, and regular hygiene all on their own., For their personal safety and care, skilled nursing provides the assistance they need.
- Mental and Social Support: Seniors and others who are no longer able to socialize due to health issues often suffer from depression. This is usually due to isolation and lack of social connection. Studies show our social connections help us live happier and healthier lives. Socialization within skilled nursing facilities provides opportunities to connect with others, improving the emotional wellbeing of the residents.
What Are Some Jobs That Require Skilled Nursing Nurses?
A skilled nursing nurse can be an RN or LPN, who has experience and a focus on geriatrics, rehabilitation,management of chronic conditions. Nursing jobs that require specific skilled nursing skills like wound care, catheter care, IV management, and the like, are found in a few different scenarios. The most obvious employer of skilled nursing nurses is a skilled nursing facility, but these special nurses are also employed in home health, and rehab facilities. Here are the top nursing jobs requiring skilled nursing skills
- Skilled Nursing Facilities: Nurses who work in these facilities provide direct care to patients. They manage medication, tend wound care, and assist in rehabilitation. A nurse in a skilled nursing facility also supervises nursing assistants who help patients with feeding, toileting, and hygiene.
- Home Health RN: Home health RNs manage patients’ medication, administer wound care, and educate patients and their caregivers on aspects of the patient’s needs and requirements. A home health RN is frequently responsible for the Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS), required by Medicare and Medicaid. This is a mandatory assessment of patients’ function and clinical needs. It must be done by an RN.
- Sub-Acute Rehab Nurse: RNs and LPNs who work with patients in rehabilitation facilities oversee their recovery from surgeries or illnesses that require intense therapy before they are able to return home.
- Long-Term Acute Care: These patients need nurses to manage chronic and complex conditions that require a hospital-like setting. They may have severe infections, or require the use of a ventilator.
- Hospice Nurse: A nurse who works with end-of-life care can be an RN or an LPN. They provide palliative care and pain management in the home or in a special hospice facility.
How to Boost Your Resume with Skills That Stand Out
The ideal nurse in skilled nursing has a blend of clinical skills and the soft skills necessary for an emotionally demanding job. In addition to essential qualities and proficiencies in geriatric care, clinical management of chronic conditions, and knowledge of wound care, skilled nursing also calls upon compassion and helping patients maintain their dignity in challenging situations. Here’s how to cite those resume boosting skills that stand out and make you a top candidate for a career in skilled nursing.
Knowledge, Clinical Skills and Technical Proficiency
- Geriatric Care: Even if you’ve never worked directly in geriatrics, you can reference our experience with the senior population and those to whom you’ve provided palliative care, or chronic disease management.
- Wound Care and Dressing Care: Your experience in wound care, as well as formal training and certification makes an impression when applying for a career in skilled nursing.
- Administering Medication: Your experience in medication administration is a required skill in skilled nursing. Make sure to list your medication management in oral meds, IV, and subcutaneous medication delivery.
- Patient Assessment Skills: Basic skills in patient care such as checking vital signs, monitoring changes in condition, and observing and recognizing signs of infection are necessary when working with patient populations in skilled nursing.
- Infection Control: Knowing the protocols of how to prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases, especially among a group of compromised individuals living in a communal setting, is vital to patient care in skilled nursing facilities and sub-acute rehab centers.
- Assistance with Daily Living: LPNs (and CNAs) should be proficient in helping patients with daily living tasks such as bathing, toileting, dressing, feeding, hygiene, and grooming.
- Transporting Patients and Assisting with Mobility: All those who care for patients that require skilled nursing skills must be trained in transfer techniques such as using equipment like lifts and gait belts.
- OASIS Training and Certification: This is a fundamental skill for home health RNs. It’s also a skill that’s a resume booster.
- Electronic Medical Records: Most skilled nursing facilities have their own preferred medical records software, however having a basic grasp of electronic medical record-keeping is a desirable skill among candidates.
- Regulatory Compliance: Having a basic knowledge of HIPAA and your state’s regulations and requirements is a fundamental skill for nurses.
Soft Skills are Resume Boosters
Working in a skilled nursing setting, be it a residential facility, home health, or sub-acute rehab, requires well-honed soft skills. You’re working with very vulnerable individuals and sometimes emotions run high. In the case of patients with cognitive challenges like dementia, Alzheimer’s or a traumatic brain injury, the families and caregivers can also present a challenge. Here are those vital soft skills to include in your resume that will stand out and boost your resume to the top.
- Patience: Your patience will be tried again and again in a skilled nursing environment. But a nurse who can call on their patience and compassion in the face of irritable, angry, confused, or combative individuals is going to stand out.
- Ability to Communicate Effectively: You’ll need to rely on effective communication in working with care teams, families, and the patients themselves. You’ll need to educate and inform all involved with the patient.
- Prioritizing Tasks for Time Management: Working in a skilled nursing facility often means you will have high patient loads. Medication must be delivered in a timely fashion and you’ll need to properly delegate those tasks which don’t require a nurse’s immediate attention.
- Flexibility and Ability to Adapt: Ask anyone who has ever worked in skilled nursing and they will tell you circumstances can change in a moment. That’s why adaptability and flexibility are key soft skills in skilled nursing. Whether you need to be flexible with your schedule, or adapt to changes in patient care, these attributes are prized by recruiters looking for candidates in skilled nursing environments.
- Meticulous Attention to Detail: This is a soft skill that benefits nurses in all healthcare organizations and environments. But, in skilled nursing it is particularly beneficial. Being observant and noting even the smallest, seemingly insignificant changes in your patient can mean a difference between life and death.
- Being a Team Player: Collaborating with the care team, including physicians, CNAs and therapy, is a constant in this type of care scenario. Being able to work with your team in a cohesive manner means your patient gets the very best of all of you.
As in all jobs in healthcare, or other areas as well, recruiters look for stability, reliability, and willingness to learn and adapt. You can highlight these attributes within your resume through your experience. If you’re just starting out as a nurse in a skilled nursing career, demonstrate your commitment and reliability, as well as adaptability, through highlighting your experience in internships, clinicals, volunteer work and your academic performances.
Certifications and That Stand Out for Skilled Nursing Candidates
Working in a skilled nursing environment is different from a regular clinical setting. If you have the following certifications, you are practically a shoe-in.
- Gerontology: Care that’s focused on older adults. (RN-BC)
- Wound Care Certification: This focuses on managing chronic wounds, pressure wounds, and skin integrity.
- Certified Wound Care Nurse (CWCN): This certification is necessary for working with ostomy patients.
- Infection Preventionist: This certification means the nurse received special training for infection control in communal living environments.
- Pain Management Nursing Certification (PMGT-BC): This certification is for working with those in chronic pain.
- Dementia Care Certification: Specialized training and certification for those nurses working with dementia and Alzheimer’s patients.
These certifications boost your resume beyond core certifications like:
- Basic Life Support
- CNA Certification
- IV Certification
Boost Your Resume and Stand Out from The Other Candidates
There are many, many skills that are marketable for nurses. If you really want to stand out from the crowd and be a top candidate for a career in skilled nursing, boost your resume by including these skills and proficiencies.
For more on a career in skilled nursing, please contact BOS Medical Staffing.
