Associate Vice President Safety & Experience

Aurora Health Care; Oak Brook (IL); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Aurora Health Care is seeking an experienced healthcare executive to lead patient safety, quality, and patient experience across the Oak Brook region. The role focuses on deploying high reliability principles, reducing harm, and guiding organization-wide improvement efforts.

The leader will partner with enterprise quality and performance teams, drive data-driven decision making, and ensure patient-centered care is embedded in daily operations. Extensive travel may be required.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in healthcare administration, nursing, public health, business, or related field.
• Minimum of 10 years of progressive leadership experience in healthcare.
• Strong track record leading safety culture and large-scale improvement initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership for patient safety, quality, experience, and reliability across the health system area.
• Oversee harm reduction, serious safety event prevention, and learning systems; drive enterprise-wide improvement.
• Partner with quality, performance improvement, and clinical leaders to identify trends and prioritize initiatives.
• Lead patient experience strategies to ensure equitable, compassionate, family-centered care across the continuum.
• Sponsor PFACs and engage patients and families in care design, improvement, and governance.
• Collaborate with area presidents and executive leaders to align priorities with operational strategies; drive change management.

Skills

Patient safety

High reliability

Executive leadership

Data-driven decisions

Health equity

Education

Master's degree

Job description

Major Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & High Reliability

• Lead the deployment and sustainment of high reliability principles (HRO) across hospitals and care settings within the area, fostering a culture of safety, transparency, and continuous learning.
• Serve as a visible executive champion for patientsafety culture, psychological safety, and just culture, partnering with area executives, medical staff leaders, and frontline teams.Translate enterprise patient safety and experience strategies into actionable,area‑levelpriorities with clear goals, metrics, and accountability.

Patient Safety & Outcomes Improvement

• Provide executive oversight for patient safety programs, including harm reduction initiatives, serious safety event prevention, learning systems, andorganization‑wideimprovement efforts.
• Partner with area and enterprise quality and performance improvement teams toidentifytrends, prioritize initiatives, and drive sustained improvement in clinical outcomes and reliability.Utilize data, safety event insights, and patient feedback to guidedecision‑makingand improvement strategies across the area.

Patient Experience & Engagement

• Lead comprehensive patient experience strategies that ensure compassionate,equitable, and patient‑and-family‑centeredcare across the continuum.
• Oversee and align volunteer services to support patient experience, community engagement, and organizational mission.
• Provide executive sponsorship and strategic direction for Patient & Family Advisory Councils (PFACs), ensuring meaningful partnership with patients and families in care design, improvement, and governance.

Executive & Clinical Partnership

• Collaborate closely with Area Presidents, CMOs, CNOs, and other executive leaders to integrate patient safety and experience priorities into operational and clinical strategies.Influence through partnershipwhilebuilding alignment across disciplines and levels of leadership.Lead changemanagement efforts to embed safety and experience improvements into standard work and daily operations.
• Serve as a key liaison between area operations and enterprise quality, safety, and experience leadership.

Governance, Accountability & Communication

• Establish clear performance expectations and dashboards for safety culture, patient experience, and outcomes, with routine review andexecutive‑levelaccountability.Effectively communicate progress, risks, and opportunitiesacross the quality management system.
• Designs and directs the work of the assigned area(s) of responsibility. Selects, coaches, and develops teams, settingobjectivesthat align with organizational strategy to inspire and motivate the teams. Manages organizational talent through performance management, succession planning, and development. Designs and directs processes by which team and individual performance are recognized, feedback is consistently delivered, and performance is systematically improved.
• Develops and/or recommendsoperating andcapital budgets and controls expenditures within approved budgetobjectives.
• Responsible for understanding and adhering to the organization’s Code of Ethical Conduct and for ensuring that people actions, and the actions of employees supervised,comply withthe policies, regulations, and laws applicable to the organization’s business.

Minimum Job Requirements

Education

• Master’s degreerequiredin healthcare administration, nursing, public health, business, or relatedfield.

Certification / Registration / License

• N/A

Experience

• Minimum of 10 years of progressive leadership experience in healthcare, with significant responsibility in patient safety, quality, patient experience, or operational leadership within a complex health system.
• Demonstrated success leading high reliability, safety culture, and/or large‑scale improvement initiatives across multiple sites or levels of care.

Knowledge / Skills / Abilities

• Deep understanding of patient safety science, high reliability principles, and performance improvement methodologies.
• Strong executive presence with the ability to influence, align, and lead through complexity.
• Exceptional communication skills, includingexperienceengaging physicians, nurses, executives, patients, families, and community stakeholders.
• Proven ability to use data and insights to drive strategy, improvement, and accountability.
• Demonstrated commitment to patient‑and-family‑centeredcare and health equity.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to interpret complex data and develop data-driven insights and recommendations.
• Strategic thinking andresults orientedskills while working across all levels of leadership.
• A strong understanding offederal and stateregulatory requirements and accreditation standards in the healthcare industry

Physical Requirements and Working Conditions

• This position requires travel, therefore, will be exposed to weather and road conditions.
• Operates all equipment necessary to perform the job.

Preferred Job Requirements

Preferred Education

• Masters Degree in clinical background strongly preferred.

Preferred Certification / Registration / License

• Clinical licensure strongly preferred.

This job description indicates the general nature and level of work expected of the incumbent. It is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities required of the incumbent. Incumbent may be required to perform other related duties.