Patient Safety Specialist (RN), Full Time Days

Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley•Dublin, CA

5d•$76 - $101

About The Position

The Patient Safety Specialist manages the hospital’s incident/event reporting system, provides education on its use, and conducts intensive investigations and root cause analyses related to safe and efficient patient care. The role facilitates management follow-up and ensures corrective actions are comprehensive. It works collaboratively with Risk Management, Patient Safety and Accreditation, Quality, the Medical Staff Office, and other affected leaders and staff to investigate significant and sentinel events and coordinate root cause analysis. The position supports safe and effective patient care, reduction of medical and healthcare errors, improvement of the facility-wide patient safety program, and timely reporting and follow-up in accordance with hospital policies and external regulatory and accrediting requirements. It conducts clinical investigations to assess potential liability and identify opportunities to improve patient safety. It also coordinates unit-, department-, and organization-level data management, implements effective data collation and analysis processes to identify trends, and designs or enhances user-friendly data-tracking tools.

Requirements

Associate degree or higher.
Three years of healthcare experience.
California Registered Nurse (CA-RN) license.
Ability to collect and record data, evaluate data and statistics, and maintain effective reporting systems.
Effective oral and written communication skills.
Ability to foster effective working relationships and build consensus.
Ability to manage, organize, prioritize, multitask, and adapt to changing priorities.
Ability to mediate and resolve complex problems and issues.
Ability to plan, organize, prioritize, work independently, and meet deadlines.
Ability to provide leadership, influence others, and consult, advise, and instruct management and staff on difficult patient issues.
Knowledge of basic research and investigation techniques; ability to interpret data, prepare reports, and propose solutions to situations involving potential or actual patient injury.
Knowledge of computer systems and software used in the functional area.
Knowledge of medical terminology and related levels of care and treatment.
Knowledge of risk management and quality improvement principles and patient safety issues.
Knowledge of statistical analysis and reporting practices for quality improvement and program evaluation.
Knowledge of current theories, principles, practices, standards, and emerging technologies, techniques, issues, and approaches in clinical practice.
Knowledge of variables affecting patient healthcare processes and outcomes.
Knowledge of and ability to apply performance improvement methodologies and tools, such as Lean, Six Sigma, proactive risk assessments, and Root Cause Analysis.

Responsibilities

Analyze, summarize, and report patient safety activity to hospital and department management.
Maintain mechanisms for monitoring action plans and deficiencies, proactively identify areas at risk, and report to the hospital committee structure monthly.
Develop mechanisms to communicate patient safety information across the hospital and clinics; disseminate best practices and promote process improvements.
Manage the organization-wide occurrence/event reporting system and ensure data integrity.
Educate staff and managers on the incident reporting system, through group or individual just-in-time training.
Promote use of the incident reporting system by physicians, nurses, and other healthcare providers.
Co-design and implement ongoing in-service educational presentations about patient safety standards for the hospital and clinics.
Recommend and facilitate changes with Risk Management, Quality, and operational managers and directors to improve patient safety and care outcomes based on identified risks.
Participate in developing, enhancing, modifying, and improving patient safety programs.
Collaborate on development or revision of patient safety policies and procedures.
Identify barriers to patient safety programs, recommend and implement corrective measures, and improve the organization’s patient safety program.
Recommend actions to eliminate or mitigate risk of patient harm.
Review patient incident/event reports and investigate reported events and safety issues with Risk Management, including medical record reviews, interviews, equipment investigations, and external agency reporting.
Participate in and co-lead reviews of significant adverse events and root cause analysis; ensure timely, comprehensive reviews and sufficient information for leadership to determine regulatory reporting.
Review patient safety and environment-of-care standards and conduct trend, pattern, and other statistically valid analyses; make recommendations based on findings.
Monitor occurrence/event reporting software, including dictionaries, user security, updates, interface transactions, and reports.
Co-lead a patient safety FMEA project at least every 18 months.
Serve on the Hospital Quality Council and Patient Safety Committee.
Provide patient safety consultation and serve as a resource for patient care departments, clinics, physicians, nurses, and other practitioners.
Perform duties in accordance with the hospital’s C-I-CARE standards.