Nursing Lead, Hospital Research Integration

Position Summary

This is not a bedside role. It’s not a coordinator role. And it’s not a navigator role.

UT Health San Antonio is building the infrastructure that makes hospital-based clinical research safe, sustainable, and systematically excellent and we’re looking for an experienced nurse with the clinical credibility, systems thinking, and patient safety instincts to support it. If you want to shape how research is done at the hospital level, setting standards, building workflows, and influencing practice institution-wide, this is the next chapter in your career
 

What you will do 

• This position is key to translating protocol requirements into safe, reliable clinical workflows, serves as the go-to consultant for nursing staff, study teams, physicians, and hospital leaders and drives the systems-level work that makes research a sustainable part of how this hospital operates.

• You will support trial onboarding and feasibility, set research-specific safety and documentation standards, coordinate care across hospital systems for research participants, and lead the interdisciplinary collaboration that keeps complex studies running without compromising patient care or protocol fidelity.

Nursing Practice & Patient Safety

• Apply expert clinical judgment to evaluate research-related care, anticipate patient safety risks, and generate feasible recommendations before harm or deviation occurs.

• Lead protocol-to-practice review by evaluating participant safety, nursing touchpoints, documentation needs, escalation pathways, and staffing implications for each trial.

• Ensure reliable care coordination for research participants whose care spans admissions, discharges, infusions, imaging, pharmacy, procedures, specimen collection, and follow-up planning.

• Identify recurring safety vulnerabilities and lead or support system-level improvement initiatives to reduce preventable risk and protocol deviations.

• Serve as the hospital-wide clinical research practice expert and consultant, providing guidance to nursing staff, study teams, and medical staff on research-related clinical practice.

Research Operations & Program Infrastructure

• Participate in early feasibility and trial readiness review by evaluating protocol complexity, alignment with hospital capabilities, and operational requirements.

• Develop standard work, role clarity tools, communication pathways, and escalation algorithms that enable reliable, hospital-wide research execution.

• Coordinate study execution across nursing leadership, unit-based teams, ancillary services, investigators, quality/patient safety, informatics, regulatory, and research administration.

• Provide strategic input on research program development, space planning, technology infrastructure, documentation tools, workflow barriers, and fiscal considerations.

• Participate in institutional, local, and national interdisciplinary committees; contribute to ongoing research, quality, and safety initiatives.

• Champion a hospital environment that integrates clinical research as a sustainable, high-quality component of patient care and program development.

Education & Workforce Development

• Develop and deliver patient and family education specific to research participation, informed decision-making, and care integration.

• Design and deliver education programs for nursing practice competencies, research workflow readiness, orientation, in-service training, and staff development across the hospital.

• Mentor and precept nurses; model safe, ethical, protocol-aware practice and build a culture of harm prevention and continuous learning. 

• Provide expert coaching, peer review, and consultation to improve nursing and interdisciplinary research performance across study teams and care units.

Required Qualifications

Education: 

• Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), Master’s Degree in Nursing or equivalent field (Preferred)

Experience

• Five (5) or more years of clinical nursing experience required.

• Three (3) years or more of research experience required. 

• Background in clinical research, oncology, inpatient or procedural research workflows, clinical trials, hospital-based research operations, or new hospital/service line build is highly valued.

Licenses & Certifications

• Current Texas Board of Nursing RN license or Compact State equivalent required 

• American Heart Association Basic Life Support (BLS) required

• Research Certification (Certified Clinical Research Nurse, Board Certified (CRNBC), Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP) or Oncology Certified Nurse (Preferred)

   

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Expert nursing practice with strong clinical judgment in complex, multi-problem patient situations.

• Strong working knowledge of clinical research operations, GCP regulations, adverse event awareness, investigational product workflows, and research documentation.

• Experience supporting new program builds, operational transformation, or integrated systems development.

• Demonstrated ability to translate protocol requirements into safe, practical, role-specific workflows and standard work.

• Anticipatory patient safety skills to proactively identifying and mitigating risk before harm or deviation occurs.

• Collaborative influence across disciplines without direct line authority; relationship-based leadership at the hospital-wide level.

• Strong organizational, analytical, communication, and problem-solving skills; able to manage multiple concurrent studies and stakeholders.

• Proficiency with EHRs, clinical trial management systems, Microsoft Office and collaboration software.