Patient and Safety Specialist

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Regular/Temporary:
  Regular
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard
  
  Work Schedule:
  
  Core business hours Monday-Friday, schedules vary
• Salary Range: $ - $

The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to departmental budgets, qualifications, experience, education, licenses, specialty, and training. The above hiring range represents the University's good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible compensation at the time of posting.

The Patient Safety and Experience Specialist will coordinate patient safety and patient-centered activities across the Columbia Doctors Faculty Practice Organization. Reporting directly to the Associate Director, Patient Safety, the Patient Safety and Experience Specialist will work closely and collaboratively with the clinical leadership, the health information management team, practice managers, and staff to facilitate patient relations, patient experience, and patient safety initiatives.

That includes serving as a subject matter expert in service recovery responses that arise from patient grievances/complaints. Gathers data detailing patient complaints, grievances, and patient-related safety events. Conducts analysis in collaboration with departments, divisions, and interdisciplinary groups focusing on identifying and addressing systems issues that impact patients’ interactions with Columbia Doctors and require re-engineering. Recommends changes, policies, or programs that could prevent future errors and improve patient experience.

Identifies educational needs, develops and presents training materials. Attends presentations and training programs meant to increase awareness of patient safety and experience initiatives. Assesses patient experience and patient safety knowledge of employees and recommends changes to training programs. Familiar with a variety of the field’s concepts, practices, and procedures. Relies on experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals.

Key resources include Columbia Doctors’ electronic health record, various analytics solutions, patient safety event reporting platform, patient experience survey platform, and other applicable software programs. This position offers a unique opportunity for an effective change agent to work with clinicians, researchers, and clinical and operational staff to strengthen the safety mission at one of the largest academic multi-specialty practice organizations in the nation.

• Manages patient complaints and grievances from patient care originated in the Faculty Practice Organization, including but not limited to conducting medical record review, interviewing involved personnel, and developing a timeline of the occurrence.
• Communicates with patients who have concerns, complaints, grievances, or general feedback about their care experience to facilitate resolution and service recovery, including speaking directly to patients during investigations, drafting letters of acknowledgement, and follow-up correspondence.
• Utilizes a high degree of judgement, prioritization, problem-solving, and empathic decision-making to complete a comprehensive review of patient concerns, including activating appropriate levels of service recovery processes and procedures to improve patient satisfaction.
• Collaborates with clinical and administrative leadership (including the Executive Director, Patient Access) to implement patient-centered initiatives, including those originated from patient grievances as well as those for proactive growth of patient experience.
• Utilizes a “systems thinking” model in support of patients, faculty, and staff, with an emphasis on Just Culture principles.
• Utilizes the Columbia Doctors adverse event reporting system to organize event investigations, including attaching supporting documents and closing out relevant cases.
• Actively identifies patient experience opportunities based upon data obtained from multiple sources and in close collaboration with Patient Access analytics.
• Coordinate the investigation of complaints, grievances, and safety events, facilitate root…