Patient Safety Specialist, 40hrs. 8a-4:30p

Exemption Status:

Hiring Range:

Please note that the final offer may vary within this range based on a candidate's experience, skills, qualifications, and internal equity considerations.

Schedule Details:

Scheduled Hours:

Shift:

Hours:

Cost Center:

This position may have a signing bonus available a member of the Recruitment Team will confirm eligibility during the interview process.

At UMass Memorial Health, everyone is a caregiver - regardless of their title or responsibilities. Exceptional patient care, academic excellence and leading-edge research make UMass Memorial the premier health system of Central Massachusetts, and a place where we can help you build the career you deserve. We are more than 20,000 employees, working together as one health system in a relentless pursuit of healing for our patients, community and each other. And everyone, in their own unique way, plays an important part, every day.

I. Major Responsibilities:

1. Participates in the coordination, implementation, and evaluation of hospital-wide patient safety and risk reduction activities.
2. Performs concurrent and retrospective medical record review to investigate quality and/or patient safety concerns and to identify risk exposure and performance improvement opportunities identified by specific hospital and/or regulatory indicators.
3. Collects and analyzes patient safety, complaints/grievances, and peer review data in accordance with regulatory and entity-specific requirements.
4. Develops and disseminates ongoing and ad hoc reports to ensure that management and medical staff committees receive timely and accurate data to meet their needs in ensuring quality care and patient safety within their departments.
5. Manages the web-based events reporting system and the complaints/grievances reporting system, to include receipt, acknowledgement, investigation, follow-up, closure, trending, and reporting.
6. Provides technical assistance to staff and management including, but not limited to, regulatory and accreditation requirements, best practices and benchmarking, safety event and complaints/grievances reporting systems, root cause analysis (RCA), failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), and facilitation of communication/collaboration across staff and teams.
7. Maintains thorough knowledge of regulatory and accreditation requirements.
8. Recognizes and responds to changes in regulatory and accreditation requirements that necessitate development or revision of patient safety policies, processes, or systems.
9. Facilitates and/or participates in a variety of task force and committee meetings.
10. Develops orientation and educational materials designed to educate staff and management about patient safety processes and risk reduction.
11. Makes recommendations to improve hospital work processes and procedures, preferably using information technology solutions, when applicable.
12. Provides facilitation of communication/collaboration between staff, patients/families, and teams.

Standard Staffing Level Responsibilities:

1. Complies with established departmental policies, procedures, and objectives.
2. Attends variety of meetings, conferences, seminars as required or directed.
3. Demonstrates use of Quality Improvement in daily operations.
4. Complies with all health and safety regulations and requirements.
5. Respects diverse views and approaches, demonstrates Standards of Respect, and contributes to creating and maintaining an environment of professionalism, tolerance, civility and acceptance toward all employees, patients and visitors.
6. Maintains, regular, reliable, and predictable attendance.
7. Performs other similar and related duties as required or directed.

All responsibilities are essential job functions.

II. Position Qualifications:
License/Certification/Education:

Required:

1. High school or equivalent.
2. Knowledge of standard work processes, policies, and procedures in an acute hospital setting
3. Knowledge of state, federal and accrediting body regulations in healthcare
4. Ability to interact effectively with all levels of authority within the organization, and with patients and other customers
5. Ability to facilitate and offer technical assistance during implementation of improvement plans and to assess plan effectiveness
6. Ability to effectively influence change without direct authority
7. Ability to communicate clearly, accurately, and succinctly verbally and in writing
8. Ability to work independently and as a team member
9. Ability to organize, prioritize, and coordinate multiple activities and tasks while maintaining strict deadlines
10. Excellent analytical skills
11. Ability to develop and deliver effective presentations to large and small audiences
12. Proficient with computer programs and applications (Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
13. Ability to read, write and speak clearly in English

Preferred:
1. Nursing Diploma or degree
2. Bachelor's degree in related field

Experience/Skills:

Required:
1. Minimum five (5) years of related healthcare experience

Preferred:
1. Minimum three (3) years of performance improvement/risk management experience

Unless certification, licensure or registration is required, an equivalent combination of education and experience which provides proficiency in the areas of responsibility listed in this description may be substituted for the above requirements.

Department-specific competencies and their measurements will be developed and maintained in the individual departments. The competencies will be maintained and attached to the departmental job description.Responsible managers will review competencies with position incumbents.

III. Physical Demands and Environmental Conditions:

Work is considered sedentary. Position requires work indoors in a normal office environment.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.

We're striving to make respect a part of everything we do at UMass Memorial Health - for our patients, our community and each other. Our six Standards of Respect are: Acknowledge, Listen, Communicate, Be Responsive, Be a Team Player and Be Kind. If you share these Standards of Respect, we hope you will join our team and help us make respect our standard for everyone, every day.

As an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer, UMass Memorial Health recognizes the power of a diverse community and encourages applications from individuals with varied experiences, perspectives and backgrounds. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, gender identity and expression, protected veteran status or other status protected by law.

If you are unable to submit an application because of incompatible assistive technology or a disability, please contact us at talentacquisition@umassmemorial.org. We will make every effort to respond to your request for disability assistance as soon as possible.