Safety Specialist

Position Objective:

The Safety Specialist will support activities to strengthen the culture of safety with the goal of improving the reliability of a complex system.  The Safety Specialist investigates patient safety events, facilitates and evaluates action items to reduce the risk of patient harm.  The Safety Specialist builds and maintains strong relationships with senior leadership, operations stakeholders, clinical risk management, and quality teams to support clinical excellence and patient outcomes.  As a collaborative team member, the Safety Specialist actively engages with the Luminis Health acute care hospitals, ambulatory clinics, and behavioral health facilities.  Excellent communication skills and a high degree of flexibility are required to successfully support patient safety initiatives and adapt to rapidly changing work priorities. 

Essential Job Duties:

1. Provides input to the organizational quality and safety strategy.  Has a working knowledge of patient safety science, Institute for Healthcare Improvement model for improvement, and improvement methodology. 
2. Reports identified events to the Maryland Office Healthcare Quality per State law.  Facilitates effective interdisciplinary reviews and/or cause analysis of events that identifies opportunities for improvement, develops measureable action plan to prevent reoccurrence, ensures development of and/or evaluation of action plan as well as identifies and addresses trends in practice and/or system/process variation. 
3. Facilitates effective interdisciplinary failure mode effect analysis (FMEA).
4. Uses clinical practice experience, knowledge of clinical workflow, and evidence-based literature when leading interdisciplinary teams engaged in complex patient safety improvement work.  Ensures national practice standards are incorporated into root cause analyses and action plans.  The Safety Specialist is the lead for each root cause analysis assigned by the Director of Quality/Patient Safety.
5. Performs safety surveys and assessments of various departments, services, and systems.  This includes in-person rounding. 
6. Actively participates in the Luminis Health Safety Council where the incident reporting database is used to identify trends and opportunities to improve patient safety.  Recommends follow-up action plans required to minimize patient safety risks as appropriate.
7. Develops and implements evidence-based initiatives to create an appropriate safety culture using transparency as the foundation of this effort.  Uses the Culture of Safety data as appropriate.  Models a Just Culture.
8. Facilitate compliance with Joint Commission, CMS and other relevant quality and safety measures, definitions, sources and standards with hospital department leaders and front line.  Includes, but not limited to, The Joint Commission National Patient Safety Goals.
9. Develops and maintains positive, collaborative, supportive working relationships with the medical staff, nurses, administration, department management and team members.
10. Promotes a culture of safety and continuous improvement through just-in-time training and sharing of lessons learned.  Participates in development and delivery of formal education programs to support improvement goals.  Authors’ summaries of patient safety narratives with lessons learned for the health system enterprise.    

Educational/Experience Requirements:

• Current licensure as a registered nurse, LPN, respiratory therapist, or pharmacist.
• Minimum of three years of clinical experience.
• Basic understanding of care processes provided in multiple areas of the hospital and ambulatory settings.
• Proven track record of implementing change in a complex environment.
• Knowledge of rapid cycle improvement theory and human factor principles.
• Bachelor’s Degree required, Master’s Degree preferred.
• TeamSTEPPS Master Trainer preferred. 
• Six Sigma Greenbelt Certification preferred. 
• Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) credential preferred.

Working Conditions, Equipment, Physical Demands:

There is a reasonable expectation that employees in this position will be exposed to blood-borne pathogens.

Physical Demands – Light Work

Light work. Exerting up to 20 pounds of force occasionally, and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, and/or a negligible amount of force constantly to move objects. If the use of arm and/or leg controls requires exertion of forces greater than that for sedentary work and the worker sits most of the time, the job is rated for light work.

The physical demands and work environment that have been described are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The above job description is an overview of the functions and requirements for this position.  This document is not intended to be an exhaustive list encompassing every duty and requirement of this position; your supervisor may assign other duties as deemed necessary.