What are the top skills for a clinical nurse advisor?

The role of a nurse advisor is a compelling career choice. Not only will you be playing a pivotal part in the advancement of healthcare, but you will place yourself between primary care providers and patients to improve health outcomes overall. Suffice to say, without the creation of nurse advisor specialist jobs, there’d be a huge discrepancy between health services and the medical care that patients deserve.

However – to really make a difference in healthcare – the role of a nurse advisor requires you to have certain skills that will not only help you advance in your career but will proactively have a positive effect on the goal: the best care and treatments for patients.

Top skills for a clinical nurse advisor include:

Strong communication

Nurse advisors must be effective communicators as they often relay sensitive and complex information to patients and colleagues. Ensuring that your messages are correctly received is, therefore, key to providing quality healthcare. Simultaneously, nurse advisors must also be good listeners to understand feedback and concerns. Even non-verbal communication is important for nurse advisor specialists to discern as some patients may not be comfortable verbalising their health issues.

The ability to work within a team

In the healthcare industry, the best outcomes tend to be the result of many minds working together. This often means that you’ll need to collaborate with co-workers and other companies to find and implement the foremost solutions. The ability to establish excellent relationships as a nurse advisor is thus imperative to the field. Apart from collaboration, teamwork in the nurse advising field also includes the ability to uphold moral principles while resolving any conflict fairly with the best patient care as the priority.

Time management

Time management is essential if you want to be a productive nurse advisor who makes a significant difference in the industry.

This skill entails prioritising tasks, having the confidence to delegate, and the ability to lean on technology to streamline certain components of your workload. But most importantly, it requires you to have the ability to balance your workload so that you complete your tasks timeously without burning out. Over 15% of health workers experience burnout at some point in their careers. To advance in your career, your role requires you to be in the best state of mental health – so it’s important to protect your wellbeing.

Adaptability

Times are ever-changing, especially in the healthcare industry where technological discoveries and advancements are made daily. If anything is a pure example of this sudden change, it’s the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic – where 78% of healthcare professionals believe that the stakes for innovation have never been higher (both during and beyond the pandemic).

This means that as a nurse advisor, you need to be able to adapt to new situations, often at a moment’s notice. Sometimes this may mean working from home when you were used to an office environment, or it can mean using new technology to improve communication. Change can be effective for growth and development, so if you want to advance your career as a clinical nurse advisor, it’s important that you are skilled enough to manage this change.

Let IQVIA help you with your nursing advisor career

IQVIA is passionate about playing a pivotal role in the improvement of healthcare across the globe. We’re a diverse community of individuals who have an unwavering commitment to delivering quality solutions to the healthcare industry. Our team has dedicated itself to pairing the best nurse advisors with leading players in the industry so that skills are recognised and used to maximise patient outcomes. Take the first steps in applying your skills by browsing our nurse advisor specialist vacancies and medical sales jobs. We also invite you to connect with us so that we can provide you with more important career advice for this role.