Quality & Patient Safety Specialist - Ambulatory

GBMC HealthCare • Towson, MD

22h • Hybrid

About The Position

The Quality and Patient Safety Specialist supports the organization in advancing high‑reliability and a culture of safety. Under general supervision, this role provides leadership, guidance, and subject‑matter expertise to ambulatory clinical and operational teams to ensure compliance with policies, accreditation standards, and patient safety requirements. In general, the specialist oversees and/or facilitates quality and patient safety activities, including safety event review and analysis, patient experience and complaint resolution, emergency preparedness, performance improvement initiatives, Comprehensive Systematic Analyses, and physician peer review coordination. The specialist will participate in accreditation readiness activities, site visits, action planning, and monitoring sustainability.

Requirements

• A minimum of 2 years’ experience in outpatient healthcare settings preferred.
• Experience with quality improvement, patient safety, and action planning
• Excellent interpersonal communication skills necessary to interact effectively with a wide variety of constituents.
• Excellent organization, verbal and written communication, problem solving and team facilitation skills.
• Skill in using a computer and a variety of personal productivity applications (Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc.)
• Ability to exercise judgment in interpreting and applying standards of care, policies, procedures, and processes.
• Ability to review, analyze and develop clinical summaries of patient charts and identify the need for physician peer review.
• Knowledge of medical terminology and navigation of electronic medical record.
• Skill in conducting investigations, including chart reviews and timelines, in order to address patient safety and quality issues.
• Skill in providing consultation, coaching, and support to clinical and non-clinical staff
• Ability to deliver educational and training materials to clinical and support staff teams.
• Ability to facilitate improvement, specifically Comprehensive Systematic Analyses which may include RCAs, ACAs and FMEAs.
• Familiar with the Model for Improvement – PDSA.
• Knowledge of process improvement principles and ability to lead teams toward fixing reoccurring issues.
• Ability to gather, create reports, interpret and analyze data.
• Ability to manage multiple assignments and effectively organize and prioritize workload
• Strong working knowledge of outpatient clinical processes
• Current Maryland clinical certification (CMA) or license(RN or LPN) preferred
• Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (LSSGB) within 1 year, Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) within 2 years
• MD driver’s license

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s degree in nursing, Public Health, Healthcare Admin., or other related field preferred
• Formal Performance Improvement training preferred

Responsibilities

• Participates and assists during onsite accreditation or program survey site visits and delegated credentialing audits.
• Conducts orientation of new employees related to quality and patient safety.
• Provides on-going staff education and support as it relates to High Reliability principles and patient safety.
• Regularly rounds on assigned practices and departments ensuring a collaborative relationship with those areas’ leaders and staff and conduct proactive environmental surveillance.
• Prepare surveillance activity reports and assign/monitor action plans for completeness and sustainability.
• Reviews safety events from the incident reporting system as assigned and triages appropriately for potentially compensable events and reportable events.
• Ensure event follow-up documentation is thorough and prepares analysis of events and action items.
• Facilitate Comprehensive Systematic Analyses as designated by the Risk Prioritization Matrix to identify the root cause(s).
• Ensure thorough analyses are conducted and include appropriate corrective actions and measures of success.
• Tracks completion of corrective action and escalates when needed
• Partners and collaborates with clinical, operational, and data teams to monitor trends, identify variation and improvement opportunities and drive sustainable improvement in outcome, process, and patient experience measures.
• Consults with leadership to follow up on action items required to improve processes identified through analysis and investigation.
• Leads analysis and improvement of key quality outcomes across outpatient care settings, translating performance data into targeted improvement strategies that align with organizational priorities and regulatory and/or program requirements (Vaccine for Children, CLIA Waived Testing, CMS, TJC, ACS Quality Improvement programs, MDPCP, and other Value-Based programs).
• Supports governance and leadership reporting, preparing clear, actionable quality performance summaries for committees, executives, and boards.
• Facilitates assigned committees, task forces, or improvement teams.
• Effectively leads through influence in a matrixed environment, facilitating collaboration with operational and clinical leaders to drive alignment, accountability, and measurable quality improvement
• Conducts improvement activities in collaboration with the Performance Improvement Team and independently using tools such as: IHI Model for Improvement, PDSA, A3, 5S.
• Support strategy and practice level huddle boards using Lean principles and provide training to staff.
• Makes appropriate decisions about the need for physician peer review and facilitates timely physician peer review.
• Responsibilities may include setting the agenda; taking minutes; preparing, assigning, and tracking cases/indicators; communicating findings and recommendations to relevant committees and/or the Medical Board.
• Support patient experience through CG CAHPS data analysis and proactive staff customer service education.
• Serve as a patient advocate.
• Manages the Grievance process with a goal of reaching a mutual resolution between the complainant and the organization.
• Prepare meeting agenda and minutes and facilitate meeting as assigned.
• Ensure thorough investigations are conducted and tracks action plans and measures of success.
• Develop and support Emergency Preparedness initiatives through proactive surveillance, drills, and analysis.
• Support policy development and ensure organizational policies are reviewed and updated as indicated.
• Provide education to staff and leaders regarding policy management and monitor for adherence.
• Share the learning broadly from actual and near miss events using story telling techniques.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and generous paid time off
• Free parking
• Monthly MTA bus pass subsidy-85% paid by GBMC "if applicable"
• Company subsidized onsite fitness and wellness center "if applicable"
• Pre-paid tuition to pursue professional development, additional certifications, and degree programs
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage
• 401 (a) and 403 (b) retirement savings plan

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 501-1,000 employees