Director of Quality and Patient Safety (Lakewood/Los Alamitos) - FT Days

University of California, Irvine•Orange, CA

22d•Onsite

About The Position

Incumbent provides leadership for patient safety and quality at UCI Health-Lakewood and UCI Health-Los Alamitos campuses. This leader serves as a key regional operator supporting UCI Health sites in advancing a high-reliability approach to quality, safety, and performance improvement. This role partners with hospital leadership, physicians, and system teams to implement and sustain quality improvement (QI) programs aligned with organizational priorities, regulatory requirements, and national best practices. This position serves as a critical link between strategy and execution, advancing systemwide priorities through rigorous performance management, stakeholder alignment, and continuous improvement. Plays a key role in maintaining system standards to minimize patient harm through the implementation of systems that: create a culture of safety; proactively identify risk; encourage adverse event reporting and thoughtful, learning-oriented analysis of safety events and near misses.

Requirements

Successful track record of effective, team-oriented working relationships with physicians, nurses and other health professionals
Outstanding negotiation, written, and verbal communication skills
Outstanding listening, interpersonal relationship building, and problem-solving skills
Knowledge of current trends and best practices in healthcare quality improvement and patient safety
Exceptional level of professionalism, discretion and the ability to work on highly sensitive and confidential projects
Bachelor's Degree in related field
Able to prioritize and manage multiple projects simultaneously with demonstrated ability to complete projects successfully on time and within budget
7+ years of experience in healthcare quality and patient safety with demonstrated ability in design, implementation and sustainment of performance improvement activities in a health care setting including skillful application of continuous quality improvement and patient safety sciences
5+ years of progressive administrative leadership experience in quality improvement, performance improvement, operational excellence or patient safety in an academic medical center or large, integrated, tertiary health care setting providing expert level understanding of the art and the science of quality improvement and patient safety
Must be able to provide proof of work authorization

Nice To Haves

Record of presentations at regional and/or national meetings focused on quality and patient safety
MSN or Masters in related field
Experience in Lean Six Sigma as an improvement methodology
Current Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality, CPHQ or within 6 months of hire

Responsibilities

Provides leadership for patient safety and quality at UCI Health-Lakewood and UCI Health-Los Alamitos campuses.
Serves as a key regional operator supporting UCI Health sites in advancing a high-reliability approach to quality, safety, and performance improvement.
Partners with hospital leadership, physicians, and system teams to implement and sustain quality improvement (QI) programs aligned with organizational priorities, regulatory requirements, and national best practices.
Serves as a critical link between strategy and execution, advancing systemwide priorities through rigorous performance management, stakeholder alignment, and continuous improvement.
Plays a key role in maintaining system standards to minimize patient harm through the implementation of systems that create a culture of safety, proactively identify risk, encourage adverse event reporting and thoughtful, learning-oriented analysis of safety events and near misses.
Exercise the utmost discretion in managing sensitive information learned in the course of performing their duties.
Understands that sensitive information should be shared on a limited basis and actively takes steps to limit access to sensitive information to individuals who have legitimate business need to know.
Ensure that sensitive information is properly safeguarded.
Follow all organizational policies and laws on data protection and privacy.
This includes secure handling of physical and digital records and proper usage of IT systems to prevent data leaks.
The unauthorized or improper disclosure of confidential work-related information obtained from any source on any work-related matter is a violation of these expectations.