Principal, Safety and Risk Management

Headway

3d•$144,000 - $280,000•Remote

About The Position

Headway is seeking a Principal, Safety and Risk Management to join their Clinical Strategy team. This role will be responsible for owning safety and clinical risk management for Headway's nationwide behavioral health provider network. The position involves managing a specific risk profile including suicide and self-harm risk, violence, medication safety, telehealth crisis management, and care transitions. The role will own the end-to-end operating system for reported safety events, from intake and triage to investigation, analysis, corrective action, and closure. The individual will be the first responder for high-risk clinical events, providing support to providers and internal teams. Key responsibilities include setting program standards, defining metrics for a clinical event risk dashboard, producing reports for leadership and the board, and partnering with product development and cross-functional teams. This is an opportunity for a patient safety and clinical risk leader with a behavioral health background to shape a national safety function.

Requirements

Active clinical license as a master’s level therapist (LCSW, LPC, LMFT), doctorate clinical psychologist (PhD/PsyD), or psychiatric clinician (PMHNP-BC, MD/DO)
7+ years of experience in healthcare patient safety or clinical risk management, including direct ownership of event investigation and corrective action
Experience building or substantially scaling a safety event or clinical risk program, developing and managing from project plan through launch and scale.
Ability to triage and escalate soundly, and differentiate clinical, operational, or legal questions, routing appropriately.
Fluency with data: ability to define metrics, critically read a dashboard, interpret trends, and build a plan for deeper analysis.
Ability to drive corrective actions to verified closure across teams not directly managed, including teams unfamiliar with risk mitigation.
Exceptional communication skills, including clear documentation and ability to present findings to senior clinical and business leaders.
Deep commitment to ethical, patient-centered care, and continuous quality improvement.
Comfort being the first person in a role, in a growing program, and adaptable with new technology.

Nice To Haves

Certification in Quality and Patient Safety, Healthcare Quality and Management, Healthcare Risk Management, or an equivalent patient safety credential.

Responsibilities

Own the operating system for reported safety events end to end, including intake and triage through investigation, systematic event analysis, corrective action, and case closure.
Build the reporting culture that surfaces events in the first place.
Partner with the clinical safety team to lead the investigation process in the review of serious events, root cause and apparent cause analyses, defining the investigation standards and reference taxonomy the program uses at scale.
Convert findings into corrective and preventive actions with named owners and due dates, track every action to verified closure across teams you do not manage, and translate event trends into upstream fixes that prevent future harm.
Be comfortable as the first to respond when a high-risk clinical event needs immediate attention (e.g., an impaired provider actively seeing patients, adverse patient behavior), providing timely, compassionate, evidence-informed support to providers and internal teams.
Build the protocol and policy layer. Draft and maintain patient safety and event management protocols and policy in partnership with Clinical Operations, Legal, and Compliance, so practice is consistent, scalable, and aligned with regulatory and ethical standards.
Own measurement and the Clinical Risk Dashboard. Define metrics and the baseline safety event rate, and analyze trends in reported events and contributing factors.
Report to Leadership and the Board. Produce the metrics, trend analysis, and case narrative for the quarterly Quality and Patient Safety Report, and support the Patient Safety Review Committee and peer-led governance committees.
Structure investigations to meet regulatory requirements, accreditation standards, and delegated credentialing expectations, and supply the evidence of clinical oversight that payer and accreditation reviews require.
Build and execute detailed project plans with clinical leadership on new and novel patient safety programs as they arise.

Benefits

Equity Compensation
Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage
HSA / FSA
401K
Work-from-Home Stipend
Therapy Reimbursement
16-week parental leave for eligible employees
Carrot Fertility annual reimbursement and membership
13 paid holidays each year as well as a Holiday Break during the week between December 25th and December 31st
Flexible PTO
Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
Training and professional development