RN Patient Safety Specialist, Full Time

The Operational Improvement Specialist will provide on-site safety support within the Clinical Domain(s) and other groups as needed to advance safety improvement efforts to align with the unit/domain work within the health system’s strategic vision and plan.

About University of Cincinnati Medical Center

As part of the Clifton Campus of UC Health, Greater Cincinnati’s academic health system, University of Cincinnati Medical Center has served Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky for nearly 200 years. Each year, hundreds of thousands of patients receive care from our world-renowned clinicians and care team. Our experts utilize the most advanced medical knowledge and technology available, providing a level of specialty and subspecialty medical care that is not available anywhere else in Greater Cincinnati.

UC Medical Center is also home to medical breakthroughs- our physician experts conduct basic, translational and clinical research, leading to new therapies and care protocols, and connecting patients to the latest and most advanced treatments. UC Medical Center houses Greater Cincinnati’s only Level I adult trauma center, which includes the right mix of specialist and medical resources available at a moment’s notice for a wide variety of the most complex medical conditions and injuries.

Benefits Details

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• Employee Paid Short- and Long-Term Disability
• 401K
• Tuition Reimbursement Opportunities
• Community Discounts

Performance Measurement

• Collaborates with Safety team members on safety initiatives to perform thorough trending and analysis of events, errors, and near misses.
• Provides support as needed in RCAs to facilitate efficient (45 business days or less) completion. This may include but is not limited to assisting in interview and investigation of suspected safety events or partnering with RCA Lead to perform detailed cause analysis and identify opportunities for improvement efforts.

Communication

• Aid in transmission of information pertaining to safety strategic priorities, safety work, and process updates to frontline staff.

Culture of Safety: Ensure and Advance

• Provides education to associates regarding patient safety, risk management, just culture, and error prevention.
• Participates meaningfully in system, site, and domain safety meetings (and others as indicated). This includes but not limited to transparently reporting / escalating pertinent findings regarding deviations, opportunities to improve, barriers, and the current state of improvement work.
• Communicate effectively though a variety of ways (written, spoken, mentoring, and leading intergroup problem solving) to ensure engagement with staff and others occurs to promote a culture of safety.
• By being present onsite, partner with clinical staff to address concerns, immediate event mitigation, ensuring the use of meaningful standard work (auditing), soliciting input from staff for improvement ideas and methods of testing.
• Collaborates with key individuals within the Clinical Domain(s) and other groups as needed to encourage transparency, reporting, and safe practices for both patients and staff.

Safety Governance

• Promote employee safety integration efforts, safety initiatives, promoting transparency across UC Health, and facilitating the transitions required to ensure prospective, proactive, preventable harm elimination.
• Verifies that staff at their site are compliant with regulations as delineated by Accreditation leadership outlined by Joint Commission, ODH, OSHA and other regulatory bodies.

Improvement

• Utilizes evidence-based practices to adhere to benchmarks set forth by regulatory agencies to drive improvement.
• Collaborates with infection control and infectious disease leadership to implement and measure major safety initiative.
• Ensure that improvement work is consistent with the UC Health PI Way.
• Assist in removing barriers to improvement work. When unable to sufficiently remove barriers themselves, escalate the need to remove barriers to patient safety manager, patient safety director, or site senior leaders as necessary.
• Leads the standardization effort of unit-based quality and safety initiatives. Ensures system-wide utilization through collaboration with Patient Safety Director and other Site Leaders.
• Maintains knowledge of ongoing improvement work and opportunities throughout the Clinical Domains, and when applicable, work, that occurs outside of the domains (i.e.: falls).
• Leads improvement work within the Clinical Domain(s) and other groups as needed, in a manner consistent with the UC Health PI Way.
• Supports Patient Safety Manager in ensuring effective execution and administration of patient safety program at designated site / within Clinical Domain and other groups to facilitates efforts to achieve overall excellence in patient safety

Event Detection

• Encourages reporting of events through UC Health chosen system and utilizes information from there for trending/tracking in partnership with Risk Management and Data & Analytics.
• Escalate safety concerns to patient safety director, patient safety manager, operational improvement leaders, and site senior leaders a timely manner (as soon as possible, expected to be within same business day - even when full details are not known).

Other Duties

• Other duties as assigned that align with the UC Health Way and quality improvement.

Education and Experience Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing or Health Sciences - Alternative Bachelors considered when there is additional relevant health care experience/education.
• Active RN licensure in the State of Ohio
• 1 - 3 Years relevant experience - Minimum Required

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About UC Health

UC Health is an integrated academic health system serving Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. In partnership with the University of Cincinnati, UC Health combines clinical expertise and compassion with research and teaching - a combination that provides patients with options for even the most complex situations. Members of UC Health include: UC Medical Center, West Chester Hospital, University of Cincinnati Physicians and UC Health Ambulatory Services (with more than 900 board-certified clinicians and surgeons), Lindner Center of HOPE and several specialized institutes including: UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute and the University of Cincinnati Cancer Center. Many UC Health locations have received national recognition for outstanding quality and patient satisfaction. Learn more at uchealth.com.

At UC Health, we’re proud to have the best and brightest teams and clinicians collaborating toward our common purpose: to advance health and reduce suffering. As the region’s adult academic health system, we strive for innovation and provide world-class care for not only our community, but patients from all over the world. Join our team and you’ll be able to develop your skills, grow your career, build relationships with your peers and patients, and help us be a source of hope for our friends and neighbors. UC Health is an EEO employer.