Patient Safety Specialist in Portland, Oregon at Oregon Health & Science University

Patient Safety Specialist

US-OR-Portland

Requisition ID: 2026-40572
Position Category: Professional
Job Type: Unclassified Administrative
Position Type: Regular Full-Time
Posting Department: Quality Management
Posting Salary Range: $84,884.80 - $135,595.20 per year with offer based on experience, education, and internal equity
Posting FTE: 1.00
Posting Schedule: Normal office environment; Hybrid position although orientation will be primarily in person.
Posting Hours: Generally follows M-F 0800-1700 work week with variability depending on department and project needs.
HR Mission: Healthcare
Drug Testable: No

Department Overview

The Patient Safety Specialist provides leadership and expertise in the design and implementation of the Patient Safety Program. The Specialist utilizes knowledge of risk reduction strategies and performance improvement strategies to provide advanced internal consultation and coaching to senior leaders, managers, faculty and staff across the healthcare mission to evaluate preventable harm and identify and implement practices designed to reduce error, create realiable systems, mitigate risk, and improve patient outcomes. Specific duties include: clinical reviews of patient safety events; facilitating and managing case reviews, Root Cause Analyses, and managing the event reporting system, including performing quantitative and qualilitative analyses of the event reports, and analyzing culture of safety survey results. The specialist also provides consultation and support to the continued maturation of the OHSU Quality Management department and OHSU Management System.

Function/Duties of Position

Event Management

• Evaluate individual event reports: read event reports on assigned days to identify individual harm and system concerns, conduct further analysis and facilitate completion of investigations and action planning as appropriate.
• Share patient safety expertise to coach department leaders to investigate reported events that do not require investigation at a system level.
• Lead and complete Root Cause Analyses, Case Reviews, and other case/system reviews to identify systems concerns and identify action planning to mitigate risks.
• Partner with Executive Leaders, Risk Management, Patient Advocates to review findings from preventable harm event reviews.
• Conduct on-going and focused analyses with patient safety incidents to help identify priorities, improvement opportunities, trends, and improved performance

CMS Patient Safety Structural Measure

• Serve as project manager to ensure the hospital meets the standards identified in the Patient Safety Structural measure
• Complete an annual gap analysis and identify areas where the standard is not met
• In conjunction with the patient safety and administrative team, develop and implement action plans to address the identified gaps
• Support the development and implementation of a patient safety curriculum and competencies for clinical and non-clinical staff
• Assist with the preparation of reports to the executive leadership and board

Culture of Safety

• Provide project management and expert support to improving the culture of safety at OHSU
• Assist with the implementation and maintenance of the strategic priority efforts to improve the culture of safety
• Assist with the implementation of just culture across the organization
• Provide support for the annual culture of safety survey including:
• Data review, extraction and development of reports
• Maintain knowledge of survey function and capabilities
• Review the yearly culture of safety result and identify potential areas of improvement

Program Coordination

• Work with the Patient Safety Program Manager to complete the work of patient safety
• Serve as the facilitator with assigned projects and priority areas.
• Develop dashboards and reports for the Operations Huddles, Clinical and Hospital Departments, Safety Oversight and OMS committee, Patient Safety Review Committee, and the Administrative Team.
• Extract data for internal/external reporting and provide data and analysis to Clinical and Hospital Departments, and Vizient PSO.

Facilitate and/or lead complex initiatives and systematic changes to meet internal and external quality/safety validation

• Utilize external databases and resources (Vizient, PSO, Oregon Patient Safety Commission, The Joint Commission, DNV) to benchmark performance and idenitfy best/better practices
• Continuouly contribute to the effectiveness of the OMS reporting process
• Stay abreast of new trends and innovations in the leading safety iniativies relevant to OHSU

Education and Consultation

• Develop, revise and provide education and training on patient safety to faculty, staff and clinical leaders
• Present patient safety data and information at department and hospital committee/department meetings and orientations as requested.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Healthcare Related Field and 3 years’ recent clinical healthcare experience in a
  hospital setting
• Knowledge of quality improvement processes and tools.
• Systems knowledge and experience in identifying root causes and developing reliable and safe systems.
• Knowledge of statistical analysis and reporting practices pertinent to stable and high performing systems.
• Ability to effectively work with and communicate with staff in all levels of the organization.
• Expertise in presenting technical reports and leading group discussions with clinicians and administrators
• Evidence within last 2 years of working with teams on quality or safety initiatives
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Proficiency in office automation computer software including the Microsoft Office Suite of products.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in Nursing
• Master’s Degree or evidence of progression toward an advanced degree.
• Experience that demonstrates expertise in knowledge of safety science.
• Hospital Acute Care, Critical Care, Surgery, or Medication Management Experience
• Knowledge and experience in Lean, Human Factors, Simulation, and Project Management
• Knowledge and experience with program evaluation, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and conductive focus groups.
• Knowledge of Staticial Process Control
• Current Oregon Nursing Licensure
• Certification in Healthcare Quality or Patient Safety

Additional Details

• Normal office environment.Generally, follows M-F 0800-1700 workweek with variability depending on Clinical Department and project needs
• Extensive computer use. Frequent walking between buildings and to remote locations. When facilitating, may be standing for several hours at a time.