Senior Director - Quality Assurance, Accreditation, and Safety

Alberta Health Services; Calgary; Hybrid; CAD 89,000 - 161,000; Full time

Job summary

Assisted Living Alberta seeks a Senior Director, Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Safety to lead provincial quality and safety initiatives across Alberta’s continuing care sector. The role defines governance, strategic direction and system learning to strengthen patient safety and care outcomes for Albertans.

Reporting to the Senior Program Officer, Quality, Client Experience and Accreditation, the director will oversee accreditation activities, risk management, and cross‑sector

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in a health profession, health administration, education, business administration, organizational development, or related field.
• Minimum of ten (10) years of progressive leadership experience in a complex healthcare environment.
• Experience with Accreditation Canada standards and Alberta governance framework.
• Experience leading quality and safety across multiple programs and settings.
• Demonstrated executive leadership and relationship-management capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Provide executive leadership for the provincial Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Safety portfolio.
• Set strategic direction, governance and provincial frameworks to strengthen safety and quality.
• Lead accreditation across the sector including readiness, standards interpretation, learning, and risk management.
• Oversee financial, human and project resources and contribute to organizational strategy.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Data-driven decisions

Systems thinking

Stakeholder management

Education

Master’s degree

Job description

Senior Director - Quality Assurance, Accreditation, and Safety

Make a difference as you ensure the quality of care, health, and safety is maintained to a high standard across the province! Assisted Living Alberta (ALA) is now seeking an experienced leader who can connect the dots and use both data and systems thinking to make actionable decisions for the role of Senior Director, Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Safety.The Senior Director, Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Safety provides executive leadership and is accountable for the provincial Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Safety portfolio across Alberta’s continuing care sector. This key leadership role sets the strategic direction and establishes the governance and provincial frameworks required to strengthen patient safety and quality outcomes, and to identify risks and opportunities for improvement. As this position is provincial in scope, the physical work location for this position is negotiable within Alberta. This position may also be eligible for a remote/hybrid work arrangement.Assisted Living Alberta provides Albertans with the support they need through a comprehensive assisted living system that offers a full range of services, including medical and non-medical supports, continuing care homes, home care, community care, and social services. ALA is focused on delivering care more effectively and consistently across the province by enhancing home and community services, expediting access to supportive living environments and continuing care homes, and ensuring Albertans and their caregivers are well-informed.

Description:

The Senior Director, Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Safety provides executive leadership for the provincial Quality Assurance, Accreditation and Safety portfolio across Alberta’s continuing care sector, including ALA-operated and contracted services. Reporting to the Senior Program Officer, Quality, Client Experience and Accreditation, the role sets strategic direction, governance and provincial frameworks to strengthen safety, support system learning, address emerging risks, and advance consistent quality assurance and accreditation practices.The Senior Director is accountable for the framework and governance supporting formal Quality Assurance Reviews within ALA’s mandate, ensuring effective processes, oversight, escalation and action on findings and recommendations. The role also leads accreditation across the sector by establishing a coordinated approach to readiness, standards interpretation, sector learning, response to findings, and management of significant safety risks.The Senior Director oversees financial, human and project resources. As a member of the senior leadership team, the role contributes to organizational strategy, planning, and decision-making. The Senior Director builds strategic relationships with internal and external stakeholders to ensure safety and assurance findings drive appropriate system responses.

• Transition Company: Assisted Living Alberta
• Classification: Executive Director
• Union: Exempt
• Unit and Program: Quality, Accreditation & Client Experience
• Primary Location: Southport Tower
• Location Details: Eligible to work hybrid (on/off site) within Alberta
• Employee Class: Regular Full Time
• FTE: 1.00
• Posting End Date: 21-OCT-2026
• Date Available: 31-OCT-2026
• Length of Shift in weeks: 10
• Shifts per cycle: 50
• Shift Pattern: Days, On Call
• Days Off: Saturday/Sunday
• Minimum Salary: $64.94
• Maximum Salary: $116.89
• Vehicle Requirement: Driver's License, Vehicle Required

Required Qualifications

Master’s degree in a health profession, health administration, education, business administration, organizational development, or related field. An equivalent combination of clinical education and relevant experience may be considered.Minimum of ten (10) years of progressive leadership experience in a complex healthcare environment, including significant leadership experience in quality improvement, healthcare quality, system improvement or a related provincial or organizational function.An equivalent combination of clinical education and relevant experience may be considered.

Additional Required Qualifications

Demonstrated experience providing strategic leadership for complex quality and safety functions spanning multiple programs, service settings, organizations or providers, including oversight of significant and highly sensitive quality and safety matters.Experience with Accreditation Canada standards, Required Organizational Practices and healthcare accreditation processes as well as Alberta’s legislative and governance framework, Experience with Quality Assurance Review standards and processes.Extensive knowledge of healthcare safety, systems-based approaches to safety, quality assurance, accreditation, organizational learning, governance and approaches to identifying and addressing systemic risk.Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex quality and safety information at an organizational or system level, identify significant systemic risks and provide authoritative strategic advice to senior and executive leadership.Demonstrated executive leadership, judgment and relationship-management capability, including the ability to lead senior professionals, influence independent service providers and system partners, and navigate complex, sensitive and high-risk issues.

Preferred Qualifications

Continuing care experience, or related healthcare experience.Formal training in patient safety, healthcare quality, systems analysis, human factors, accreditation, or quality assurance.Certification in healthcare quality, patient safety, accreditation or recognized safety review methodologies.

Please note:

All postings close at 23:59 MT of the postingend date indicated.

Security Screening:

A satisfactory criminal record check and/or Vulnerable Sector Search is required prior to your first day of work. Additionally, all employees have an ongoing duty to disclose any charges or convictions that may occur during their employment with AHS.

Healthy Albertans. Healthy
Communities. Together.

We’re passionate about what we do. Our team of skilled and dedicated health care professionals, support staff, and physicians promote wellness and provide health care all across Alberta.

Everything we do at AHS reflects a patient and family centred approach; it’s about putting patients’ and families’ experiences, priorities and trust first.

We are an equal opportunity employer. AHS values the diversity of the people and communities we serve and is committed to attracting, engaging and developing a diverse and inclusive workforce.