Program Director-Transplant Quality

Company Description

At Northwestern Medicine, every patient interaction makes a difference in cultivating a positive workplace. This patient-first approach is what sets us apart as a leader in the healthcare industry. As an integral part of our team, you'll have the opportunity to join our quest for better healthcare, no matter where you work within the Northwestern Medicine system. At Northwestern Medicine, we pride ourselves on providing competitive benefits: from tuition reimbursement and loan forgiveness to 401(k) matching and lifecycle benefits, we take care of our employees. Ready to join our quest for better?

Job Description

The Program Director, Quality reflects the mission, vision, and values of Northwestern Medicine, adheres to the organization’s Code of Ethics and Corporate Compliance Program, and complies with all relevant policies, procedures, guidelines and all other regulatory and accreditation standards.

The Program Director, Quality is responsible for the operational oversight, strategy and management of the specified service line functions system-wide. Responsible for planning and coordinating all or a portion of the overall operations of the Quality program for a specific operating unit at the direction of the assigned Director, Quality. Provides leadership, resources, tools, and analytics to improve quality outcomes in specified service line.  Coordinates and leads the quality endeavor, coordinates with peers, and is responsible for implementation and follow up as outlined in the annual quality plan, ongoing priorities of leadership and quality committees, and compliance with relevant standards monitored by The Joint Commission (TJC) and other agencies. 

This position will advance the use of quality evaluation and improvement strategies to achieve key organizational goals in quality and patient safety.  The Program Director partners with administrative, physician, nursing, and ancillary leadership to advance the quality agenda through the development and implementation of plans and strategies that facilitate the achievement of strategic organizational goals.

Responsibilities:

Plans, directs, and manages the overall quality operations of the service line program(s) for their business units. Collaborates with physician, nursing, and operational leadership. In collaboration with the team, the Program Director, Quality is responsible for the following:

• Perform annual risk assessments
• Lead the development and implementation of the annual quality plan
• Actively prepare for and engage in relevant service-line-specific accreditation activities and surveys
• Provide quality support for payer center of excellence applications and processes

Implement effective quality planning

• Provide leadership to department heads and clinical chairs in designing quality plans, programs and policies, peer review and adverse event review, and best practices within their departments.  Lead the department to identify quality opportunities and concerns, in collaboration with the Vice President of Quality, Director of Quality and relevant operational Director(s).
• Support/facilitate the implementation of systems and processes that promote a fair and just culture, and improve patient care.
• Facilitate discussion and achieve consensus with senior operational and physician leadership regarding key quality and patient safety metrics and priorities
• May include collaborating to develop patient engagement strategies such as Patient Family Advisory Council

Regulatory Compliance

• Assure timely and accurate private and public reporting as required
• Assure compliance with service-line-specific Medicare Conditions of participation, Joint Commission standards, and other accreditation/licensure/ regulatory requirements (see: Competency/Performance expectations below)
• Oversee the creation, implementation, and tracking of effective corrective action plans

Provide leadership and operational implementation of assigned Clinical Quality activities

• Conduct detailed, sophisticated, accurate, timely, and comprehensive analyses of data at NMHC and outside NMHC (e.g. benchmarks, comparative data, CMS) to identify quality opportunities
• Develop, conduct, and implement improvement activities to achieve high quality & high-reliability healthcare. 
• Identify and utilize appropriate quality metrics to evaluate project or performance success based on stated purpose and needed outcomes.   
• Advance performance compared to appropriate external benchmarks and optimize process and outcome metrics.
• In collaboration with clinical operations, implement best practices which will improve quality outcomes within the organiz