Clinical Safety Director – Cigna Healthcare – Hybrid

Cigna Healthcare•St. Louis, MO

4d•$141,500 - $235,900•Hybrid

About The Position

The Clinical Safety Director leads enterprise-wide efforts to advance patient safety across all care and health services delivery environments. This role partners closely with strategic business unit leaders and enterprise functions to strengthen clinical safety programs that go beyond required regulatory compliance and accreditation standards. By translating enterprise safety strategy into actionable, measurable solutions, the Clinical Safety Director helps reduce harm, improve reliability, and reinforce a culture of transparency, learning, and continuous improvement. This role supports and complements existing regulatory and accreditation activities (e.g., NCQA, NABP, URAC, Joint Commission) while expanding the organization’s ability to proactively identify risk, mitigate harm, and improve safety outcomes across diverse operational settings.

Requirements

Minimum of 5 years of experience in clinical safety, patient safety, quality, or clinical risk management.
Demonstrated experience leading or overseeing patient safety, quality, or clinical risk programs or initiatives at scale.
Proven experience managing the full lifecycle of safety events, including reporting, triage, investigation, prioritization, mitigation, and tracking.
Direct experience conducting structured safety investigations and proactive risk assessments (e.g., Root Cause Analysis, Common Cause Analysis, Apparent Cause Analysis, FMEA).
Strong expertise in performance improvement methodologies and systems based approaches to care delivery.
Demonstrated ability to operate independently within a strategic framework and lead through influence in a complex, matrixed environment.
Strong analytical skills, including the ability to use safety data to identify trends, prioritize risk, and drive system level improvements.
Strong communication, collaboration, and change management skills.

Nice To Haves

Clinical background (e.g., RN, PharmD, or similar).
Patient safety or quality certification (e.g., CPPS, CPHQ).
Experience managing or developing safety, quality, or clinical risk management professionals (e.g., safety specialists, analysts).

Responsibilities

Advance enterprise clinical safety priorities by translating strategy into scalable frameworks, programs, and operating practices that can be consistently applied across business units.
Partner with strategic business unit leaders and operational owners to embed clinical safety expectations into care delivery models, workflows, and patient-facing processes.
Serve as an enterprise subject matter expert, providing guidance on complex safety issues, emerging risks, and high-impact improvement opportunities.
Design and strengthen proactive safety approaches that exceed baseline compliance and accreditation requirements.
Lead initiatives to reduce preventable harm, including medication safety and infection prevention.
Oversee clinical event reporting, investigation, escalation, and follow-up processes to ensure timely identification and effective management of safety risks.
Lead or provide expert oversight for structured safety reviews to identify system vulnerabilities and prevent recurrence.
Ensure corrective and preventive actions are clearly defined, implemented, and monitored for sustained effectiveness.
Partner with quality and accreditation teams, legal, compliance, and fraud, waste, and abuse teams.
Define and manage clinical safety performance indicators, including adverse events and near misses.
Analyze safety trends to identify emerging risks.
Deliver actionable safety insights to leadership.