Patient Safety Officer - Part Time

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• In collaboration with the Risk Manager, responsible for the enterprise-wide risk management/patient safety plan with the goal to eliminate or reduce the incidence and severity of harm/loss to patients, families, staff, and the organization.
• Responsible for the Beta HEART program.
• Captures and documents discussion points and action plans in the event reporting system during Root-Cause Analysis (RCA)/Event analysis meetings.
• Makes recommendations to eliminate future patient safety events.
• Conducts Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) as new or revised processes are developed.
• Monitors implementation of corrective action plans for RCA/event analysis.
• Promotes a reporting process that supports and encourages a culture of safety and reporting of patient safety events.
• Provides ongoing patient safety training for facility personnel and health care practitioners.
• Identifies process improvement opportunities and works with key stakeholders to implement action plans.
• Coordinates the Reliability Management Team (RMT), including meetings, and ensures follow up on identified patient safety initiatives as outlined in the Risk Management/Patient Safety Plan.
• Develops, monitors and reports activities to improve patient safety, focusing on Critical Access Hospital (CAH) National Patient Safety Goals, Hospital Acquired Condition (HAC)s, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) best practice recommendations.
• Responsible for patient safety standards in the applicable accreditation survey, state licensure regulations, and federal conditions of participation.
• Affords assistance with regulatory compliance, accreditation and state survey process, through staff education and survey preparedness rounds.
• Serves as a patient safety and High Reliability organization subject matter expert. Functions as process improvement team leader/member to reduce hospital acquired conditions, injuries, errors, and unintended outcomes.
• Identifies and implements patient safety best practice initiatives by reviewing sentinel event alerts, Patient Safety Organization information, and other key organizations and references.
• Coordinates the BETA HEART® (healing, empathy, accountability, resolution and trust) program, which creates a reliable, sustainable, and transparent culture of safety. This includes the annual culture of safety survey.
• Compiles survey results, conducts debriefings, and assists with identifying plans for improvement with the Director/Manager/Supervisor of each department.
• Coordinates with the Peer Support (Care for the Caregiver) Team which provides Health System employees emotional support and psychological first aid after critical incidents and times of stress.
• Reviews care and treatment provided by staff, and providers, as part of the RCA/event analysis processes.
• Leads process improvement activities, utilizing Lean/Six Sigma principles, with Director/Managers, and Medical Staff, to improve patient safety.
• Recommends appropriate revisions to new or existing policies related to areas of expertise.
• Conducts routine patient safety rounding to identify areas for improvement.
• Assists the Quality Analyst, and Director/Manager with maintaining current Performance Excellence boards.
• Assists with the event reporting system.
• Represents the department on appropriate committees as assigned.
• Coordinates the quarterly interdisciplinary Patient Safety Committee.
• Ensures compliance with Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), CDPH Title 22, IVCH NRS/NAC standards, and all other federal, state and regulatory agencies.
• Contributes to departmental operations by assuming a range of duties, including those outside the traditional scope of the position, as required to meet organizational needs.

Qualifications

• Strong technical knowledge and an understanding of data elements and data analysis.
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills and a strong attention to detail.
• Ability to produce analysis of basic quality measure reporting.
• Ability to converse knowledgably with physicians.