Senior Clinical Risk Manager

** Job Description
** The Senior Clinical Risk Manager’s primary responsibility is to proactively manage adverse events, including the identification and management of those with professional liability exposures, provide consultation regarding clinical risk management matters, and develop and deliver risk management education programs as assigned, within UW Medicine and the University Schools. The Senior Clinical Risk Manager works in close collaboration with UW Medical Directors, Chief Nursing Officers, individual health professionals, directors, and managers and in close cooperation with Patient Relations, Patient Safety, Quality Improvement, Compliance, and/or billing staff for assigned UW entities.

This position works to prevent and mitigate patient harm and the associated potential professional liability exposures and to ensure regulatory compliance with respect to the management of adverse patient events and patient grievances. The Senior Clinical Risk Manager will be the lead for managing risks for UWMC's Behavioral Health Center at the Northwest Hospital Campus but will also have responsibility for managing risks at UWMC and at other facilities as assigned.

Objectives:
* Identify and manage and/or collaborate in the review of events involving patient harm for the purpose of improving patient safety and/or the quality of the care.
* Enhance the relationship between patients and those involved in patient care delivery via the successful management of patient grievances involving alleged harm.
* Provide proactive clinical risk assessments and advice as component of the relevant UW quality improvement program.
* Develop and deliver clinical risk management education programs for the purpose of medical malpractice prevention as part of UW Medicine coordinated quality assurance programs.
* Identify potential claims to reduce their adverse effects on the organization’s human, physical and financial assets and collaborate as necessary with others in the management of claims.

This position provides both strategic direction and direct intervention in the most sensitive and highly confidential patient care situations encountered in the clinical enterprises. It is the lead risk manager for patient care events at the Behavioral Health Center at the Northwest Campus, in addition to regular assigned risk manager responsibilities at UWMC and other locations such as Harborview Medical Center as needed.

This position reports to the Associate Director, Clinical Risk Management, for UWMC, and to the Associate Director, Clinical Risk Manager for Harborview Medical Center for entity-specific activities. It interacts directly with physicians, nurses, quality improvement and patient safety officers when patients are harmed (death, serious surgical complications, etc.) in the course of care delivery. The Senior Clinical Risk Manager interviews and coaches faculty and staff, provides advice to health care executives about the management of serious patient harm events and regulatory compliance associated with them, and is the primary intermediary with patients and their families if a formal grievance is filed.

The position requires highly developed analytical skills, familiarity with the clinical environment and the complexities of health law, particularly in the field of behavioral health, as well as excellent communication skills to gain the trust of physicians to effectively deal with these types of situations.  The credibility of the individual is critical to the management of events as well as more proactive strategies provided through consultation and risk management education programs.

This position provides direct support to the University schools' clinical operations. Failure to appropriately manage the situation when patient harm occurs could result in significant adverse publicity and reputational harm to the University and to the relevant clinical entity. Failure to appropriately manage patient harm events, via mitigation or prevention, increases the University's exposure to medical malpractice litigation. This area of litigation is the most expensive from a risk financing perspective.
** DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
**** Event Management & Mitigation (75%)
*** Create and maintain individual event review documentation and aggregate data about events (clinical incidents and accidents) involving patient harm or risks to patient safety to support on-going clinical risk management/mitigation and quality improvement initiatives.  + Review event (clinical incident/accident) reports on a daily and on-going basis to identify and manage or collaborate with others to manage events involving patient harm that may also be associated with professional liability exposure;  

+ Maintain accurate coding and analysis of events to support patient safety and quality improvement initiatives and compliance with regulations;  + Maintain information about individual events to support the management of claims by the UW Claims Managers; and  +…