Director of Patient Safety - Penn Presbyterian Medical Center

Penn Presbyterian has a leadership opportunity for a Director for Patient Safety.

The Director of Patient Safety reports to the Director of Quality & Safety, and is responsible for development, leading, and building of an organization-wide world-class program placing the entity at the forefront of patient safety. Additional responsibility includes: regulatory compliance, coordination of related data collection, analysis and reporting related to patient safety; collaborates with professionals both at the entity and system level to identify and implement patient safety improvement initiatives to achieve departmental and organizational strategic goals. Additionally, the Director of Patient Safety is a liaison with the following corporate departments: Risk Management/ Legal, Quality and Patient Safety, the Penn Medicine Academy, Performance Improvement, the Office of Medical Affairs (OMA), the Office of Patient Affairs (OPA), Penn Medicine Privacy Office and Office of General Counsel.
The Director of Patient Safety relies on extensive experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals. The Director of Patient Safety will work directly with the Director of Quality & Safety, the Senior Leadership team and medical staff leadership to lead the organization to outstanding performance on key metrics in quality and patient safety.
 
Position Description:
Critical Functions:
1. Support the operations of the PPMC Quality and Safety department
a. Responsible for development, building, and leading of an organization-wide world-class patient safety program placing the entity at the
forefront of patient safety
b. Partnership with Department and Executive Leaders; key teammate with the CMO, Director of Quality & Safety, and the entity Patient Safety
Officers in engaging executive, entity, and clinical leadership to foster a culture of safety and improve patient outcomes.
c. Entity lead for HRO efforts related to patient safety (i.e. HRO program initiatives/trainings and Culture of Safety survey)
2. Perform other duties as required by the organization
Patient Safety and Process Improvement:
1. Responsible for leading and championing continuous process improvement via the application of patient safety science at the entity; supports
learning, development, teaching/training, and maintenance of processes necessary to integrate clinical performance activities at the entity;
follows the Patient Safety and Performance Improvement Plans
a. Support specialized resources to assist in safety improvement activities
i. Lead and/or attend FMEA, RCA and ACA
ii. Lead using process improvement methodology (Lean, Six Sigma, PDSA, etc.)
iii. Role in PMSN: Coordinate investigation of serious patient safety events and make recommendations for improvement
iii. Lead change management
iv. Serve as a subject matter expert and informant for initial systems’ design or system redesign
2. Lead and collaborate in the implementation of the hospital's patient safety plan, to eliminate medical errors through timely reporting, early
identification of systems defects and implementation of solutions that promote patient safety
3. Work collaboratively to embed excellence in patient safety and quality improvement
4. Participate in the proactive assessment and measurement of activities and findings of entity and each clinical department’s safety programs
5. Represent and lead on the behalf of Patient Safety Program in appropriate entity and health system committees as identified to embed
excellence in quality improvement
6. Partner with respective departments to interpret, synthesize, and communicate results on recent surveys or assessments impacting patient
safety, quality, and efficient clinical care.
7. Contribute to generating and sharing new knowledge in regional, state and national patient safety venues in conjunction with UPHS (i.e.
University Health System Consortium (UHC), CMS, IHI, NPSF, etc.)
8. Support the development and presentation of quality/patient safety research in local, regional and national forums
9. Collaborate with others to the creation of a high reliability organization (HRO)
a. Serve as PPMC entity lead for HRO implementation
b. Collaborate with Department Directors to assess and direct journey towards HRO
c. Serve as role model of Culture of Safety: behaviors and standards
10. Perform other duties as required by the organization
a. Collaborate with entity leaders such as Department Directors to build quality and patient safety programs; including key elements and metrics;
partner colleagues across the system to encourage inter-entity collaboration in Quality and Safety, including the service lines.
Patient Safety Data Management:
1. Oversee standardization of event management reporting. Work closely with the safety net database administrators and information services to
improve data capture rates and reporting. Work directly with entity to review safety reports and design interventions and action plans based on
results and level of risk. Highlight themes around safety and develop organization-wide strategy for mitigation.
2. Oversee the continued development of our incident reporting system to meet our objectives
3. Standardize key performance metrics around patient safety for health system (e.g. Preventable Harm Index)
4. Actively participate in the PSO learning collaborative. Ensure implementation of best practices, alerts, and updates to drive patient safety
improvement.
5. Ensure the accuracy and integrity of all entity patient safety related data in the health system databases (i.e. Midas, the Penn Data Warehouse,
etc.)
6. Overall, uses data to develop strategic plans and policies for improved safety throughout the entity
Risk Management, Regulatory Affairs, and Compliance
1. Collaborates with management (managers, directors and senior leadership) to ensure compliance with regulatory agencies
2. Ensure compliance with the standards of the Joint Commission (TJC), Pennsylvania Department of Health, CMS and any other regulatory agencies
as it relates to preparation and continuous readiness for licensure and accreditation visits.
3. Partner with Risk Management on patient safety priorities
i. Participate in the process for disclosure of Act 13 and 52 events to patients/families and reporting to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority.
Leadership
1. Works effectively with all stakeholders to execute departmental action plans and achieve goals.
2. Demonstrates the appreciation of all team members’ contributions to the success of the department.
3. Affords staff the appropriate control on how they deliver defined results/outcomes (team empowerment, where appropriate).
4. Establishes and sustains an open, two-way communication style within the work environment ensuring an exemplary level of professionalism and
expected deliverables.
5. Establishes a comprehensive level of trust within the work environment based on positive relationships, knowledge, and consistency.
6. Materializes an understanding of the organization’s mission, vision and values within the department.
7. Provides staff the training they need to demonstrate and sustain success; ensuring their understanding of job expectations.
8. Effectively communicates, to ensure staff understands deliverables and accountabilities.
9. Develops and sustains a level of team collaboration, cooperation and patient-focused care.
 

Minimum Requirements:
Please apply if you possess these qualifications:
Bachelor's Degree Clinical discipline (e.g., nursing) or healthcare-related field And 5+ years Clinical background with experience in patient safety and quality in a complex patient care environment required
Master's Degree Advanced degree in medicine, nursing, patient safety and quality, other healthcare related field, business or health policy Regulatory preferred
Experience having prepared and participated in state, Joint Commission and/or CMS survey within the past 2 years Preferred
Quality Management & Process Improvement  And 3+ years Experience in quality management with technical knowledge of administrative, operational, and clinical healthcare functions preferred
Process Improvement Training: Six Sigma, Lean and/or IHI training (PDSA) Certification Or Certification: Lean Silver or Gold certification, CPPS, PMP, SSGB and/or SSBB  preferred