Post Job
zippia ai icon

Automatically Apply For Jobs With Zippi

Upload your resume to get started.

Nursing Director skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025
6 min read
Quoted Experts
Cinthya Sotelo,
Dr. Michelle Cheshire
Nursing Director Example Skills
Below we've compiled a list of the most critical nursing director skills. We ranked the top skills for nursing directors based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 16.2% of nursing director resumes contained patients as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a nursing director needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 nursing director skills for your resume and career

1. Patients

Here's how nursing directors use patients:
  • Provided medication administration, care coordination for patients on ventilator support, intravenous therapy, and other medical services.
  • Provided professional nursing care to patients including administration of immunization, medications and treatments as per provider's orders.

2. Term Care

Here's how nursing directors use term care:
  • Contributed solid nursing experience toward successfully directing and supervising clinical functions for 60- bed skilled nursing/long term care facility.
  • Allocated available resources and supervised the delivery of quality nursing care in assigned long-term care facility.

3. Home Health

Here's how nursing directors use home health:
  • Participated in strategic planning sessions for Home Health Agency development, target market analysis and recruitment strategies.
  • Accepted short term project to assist Owner/Administrator of new Medicare/Medicaid Certified home health agency.

4. Resident Care

Here's how nursing directors use resident care:
  • Coordinate interdisciplinary patient/resident care management efforts.
  • Ensured delivery of compassionate quality care, participated actively in resident care and participated in all admission and discharge decision making.

5. Rehabilitation

Here's how nursing directors use rehabilitation:
  • Implemented and chaired interdisciplinary rehabilitation committee.
  • Provided leadership to make the facility forerunner in the implementation of Total Quality Management and a statewide model for Psychiatric Rehabilitation.

6. Infection Control

Infection control describes the principles and practices used in hospitals and other healthcare facilities to control and minimize the spread of infections with the aim of lowering rates of infection. Infection control refers to the process of detecting and controlling pathogens in order to reduce their spread.

Here's how nursing directors use infection control:
  • Prepared and administered medications to various consumers, and ensured that infection control policies were maintained upon each visit.
  • Conducted case management sessions oversaw infection control, utilization reviews, assessed employee safety plans and quality assurance.

Choose from 10+ customizable nursing director resume templates

Build a professional nursing director resume in minutes. Our AI resume writing assistant will guide you through every step of the process, and you can choose from 10+ resume templates to create your nursing director resume.

7. CPR

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR is a medical procedure that involves chest compression to help a patient breathe. This artificial ventilation helps in keeping the brain function in place and regulates blood throughout the body. CPR is a lifesaving procedure that is used in emergencies.

Here's how nursing directors use cpr:
  • Perform emergency procedures such as Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR).
  • Provide on-call care at all times of day and night Maintain all confidential personnel files, license and CPR compliance records.

8. Direct Patient Care

Here's how nursing directors use direct patient care:
  • Provided leadership, direction, and administration of day-to-day operations associated with direct patient care.
  • Provided direct patient care that includes conscience sedation of ambulatory surgery center patients.

9. Federal Regulations

Federal regulations refer to the set of rules, both general and permanent that are published in the Federal Register by the agencies of the federal government and the executive departments. Federal regulations are the large body of rules that govern federal practice. Examples of these laws include taxes and financial regulation, discrimination law, wages law, and so on.

Here's how nursing directors use federal regulations:
  • Managed all aspects of nursing accountability, staff development, budget accountability, and adherence to state and federal regulations.
  • Assumed responsibility for continuity, quality, and safety of services delivered in compliance with state and federal regulations.

10. Customer Service

Customer service is the process of offering assistance to all the current and potential customers -- answering questions, fixing problems, and providing excellent service. The main goal of customer service is to build a strong relationship with the customers so that they keep coming back for more business.

Here's how nursing directors use customer service:
  • Provided leadership to foster and reinforce a positive working environment that modeled and rewarded excellence in clinical care and customer service.
  • Promoted customer service and hospitality and responded to and adequately resolved complaints or concerns from residents or families about nursing services.

11. Quality Improvement

Quality improvement (QA) is a systematic approach to eliminate or reduce rework, wastes, and losses in the production process. It is part of quality management, which aims to increase the ability to meet quality requirements. It manages change and uses data for making decisions to improve policies, programs, and results.

Here's how nursing directors use quality improvement:
  • Evaluate and monitor the Quality Improvement Program, reporting standards and outcomes while maintaining clinical records to ensure completeness and confidentiality.
  • Processed monthly reports for department performance, coordinated quality improvement activities (QAPI) to identify performance areas for improvement.

12. Oversight

Having oversight of someone means to monitor a process or a situation. If someone has oversight of something, they are responsible for the completion of the project. Oversight is usually given to experts as they monitor their juniors or newbies as they go through a project.

Here's how nursing directors use oversight:
  • Generalized oversight and participation in all facility functions: administrative, human resources, dietary, housekeeping and maintenance departments.
  • Provided oversight on medical billing, budget implementations and cost effectiveness evaluations to improve the facility's financial position.

13. Nursing Home

Here's how nursing directors use nursing home:
  • Minimized exposure of incorrectly billed medications by working with nursing home staff in processing reverse and credit returns on refused medications.
  • Facilitated the collaboration with acute care partner to develop comprehensive Care Transitions Program leading to decreased re-hospitalization of nursing home residents.

14. Compassion

Here's how nursing directors use compassion:
  • Monitored staff interaction with residents for compassion and appropriate care.
  • Demonstrate respect and compassion in every interaction.

15. Regulatory Compliance

Here's how nursing directors use regulatory compliance:
  • Ensured regulatory compliance through regular nursing documentation auditing and direct measures of the clinical competence of nursing department personnel.
  • Provided all in-servicing and orientation education within facility, monitored quality assurance programs and insured regulatory compliance within facility.
top-skills

What skills help Nursing Directors find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on Nursing Director resumes?

Cinthya Sotelo

Director of NP Programs, FNP Option Coordinator, California State University

Prior experience with patients, such as nursing assistant, EMT, etc. It is important for new graduate nurses to place the number of clinical hours on their resume to show what experiences they had during nursing school. Being bilingual will also stand out on a resume.

What Nursing Director skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Dr. Michelle Cheshire

Associate Dean Undergraduate Programs, The University of Alabama

As nursing education transitions to competency based education I believe that students will graduate from programs more "practice ready". I believe that in the next 3-5 years having strong leadership and delegation skills will be critical for nurses to optimize patient care outcomes. The healthcare team is interdisciplinary so delegation and leadership for fellow nurses is not the only skill you will need. You will need to be able to lead a healthcare team with members from other disciplines within the healthcare arena.

List of nursing director skills to add to your resume

Nursing Director Skills

The most important skills for a nursing director resume and required skills for a nursing director to have include:

  • Patients
  • Term Care
  • Home Health
  • Resident Care
  • Rehabilitation
  • Infection Control
  • CPR
  • Direct Patient Care
  • Federal Regulations
  • Customer Service
  • Quality Improvement
  • Oversight
  • Nursing Home
  • Compassion
  • Regulatory Compliance
  • Quality Patient Care
  • MDS
  • Clinical Services
  • Bed Facility
  • Risk Management
  • Staff Development
  • State Regulations
  • SNF
  • Clinical Operations
  • Senior Care
  • LTC
  • Medication Administration
  • Supervisory Management
  • QA
  • CMS
  • Patient Satisfaction
  • Educational Programs
  • IV
  • Federal Laws
  • Performance Evaluations
  • Registered Nursing
  • Staff Education
  • Disciplinary Actions
  • Discharge Planning
  • Federal Guidelines
  • Incident Reports
  • Quality Assurance Program
  • Medicare
  • Medicaid
  • ICU
  • Dementia Care
  • Facility Policies
  • JCAHO
  • QAPI

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Research Team
Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Browse executive management jobs