AVP, System Patient Safety

UF Health; Gainesville (FL); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

UF Health seeks an AVP, System Patient Safety to provide enterprise-level leadership for patient safety, high reliability, organizational learning, and harm prevention across UF Health facilities and programs.

Reporting to the System Chief Quality Officer, the AVP serves as the senior authority for patient safety, translating national science into practice and building scalable enterprise capabilities with executive and frontline partners.

Qualifications

• Minimum 12 years of progressively responsible leadership in patient safety or quality.
• Minimum 7 years of senior leadership experience in a large academic medical center or integrated health system.
• Demonstrated expertise in patient safety science, human factors, and reliability.
• Ability to influence senior executives and frontline leaders across complex organizations.
• Credentials in patient safety or risk management (preferred CPPS/CPHRM/CPHQ or equivalent).
• Experience leading enterprise-scale safety transformation and Just Culture initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise patient safety, high reliability, and organizational learning across UF Health.
• Develop and advance enterprise patient safety strategy, governance, and infrastructure.
• Translate national safety science into organizational practice and scalable capabilities.
• Partner with executives, physicians, nursing, risk, compliance, analytics, and informatics to drive safety outcomes.
• Represent UF Health in national safety leadership forums and dissemination.

Education

Master's degree in Nursing, Medicine, Public Health, Healthcare Administration, Quality and Safety, Organizational Leadership

Job description

Overview

The AVP, System Patient Safety for UF Health provides enterprise-level leadership for patient safety, high reliability, organizational learning, and the prevention of avoidable harm across the UF Health clinical enterprise. Reporting to the System Chief Quality Officer, the AVP serves as the senior enterprise authority and subject matter expert for patient safety and high reliability across UF Health hospitals, ambulatory practices, clinical programs, and other care settings. The AVP develops and advances the enterprise patient safety strategy and establishes the infrastructure, standards, governance, measurement, and capabilities required to prevent harm, identify emerging risk, learn from events, and sustain reliable performance. The position leads the continued development of UF Health as a High Reliability Organization and translates national and emerging patient safety science into organizational practice. The position is accountable for building a scalable enterprise patient safety system. The AVP establishes the enterprise framework within which local teams are accountable for execution, leading through standards, systems, capability building, influence, measurement, organizational learning, and accountability rather than direct management of local operations. The AVP partners with executive, physician, nursing, operational, quality, clinical risk, legal, compliance, accreditation, analytics, informatics, and frontline leaders to establish a consistent enterprise approach while maintaining appropriate local accountability and flexibility. The AVP serves as a principal advisor to the System Chief Quality Officer and represents UF Health in national and professional forums relevant to patient safety, high reliability, and clinical excellence. Success in this role is demonstrated by UF Health's ability to reliably prevent harm, identify and mitigate emerging risk, learn from events, strengthen safety culture, and sustain high performance across the enterprise.

Qualifications

Education

• Master's degree in nursing, Medicine, Public Health, Healthcare Administration, Quality and Safety, Organizational Leadership, or related healthcare discipline.
• Advanced clinical, doctoral, or other terminal degree preferred.

Experience

• Minimum of 12 years of progressively responsible leadership experience in patient safety, quality, clinical risk management, healthcare operations, safety science, or a related field.
• Minimum of 7 years of senior leadership experience within a large academic medical center, integrated health system, or similarly complex healthcare organization.
• Preferred: Prior experience as a System Patient Safety Officer, Chief Patient Safety Officer, Chief Quality Officer, senior quality/safety executive, or comparable enterprise leadership role.

License/Certification/Registration

• Preferred credentials may include Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS), Certified Professional in Healthcare Risk Management (CPHRM), Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ), Lean Six Sigma, formal High Reliability/Safety Science training, Team STEPPS, or comparable credentials.

Other Qualifications

• Demonstrated success leading enterprise-wide patient safety and/or high reliability transformation across multiple hospitals, clinical settings, or organizational entities.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing enterprise patient safety strategies, operating models, infrastructure, standards, or systems of accountability.
• Demonstrated expertise in contemporary patient safety science, systems thinking, human factors, reliability science, organizational learning, and safety culture.
• Demonstrated experience leading culture transformation, including high reliability, Just Culture, psychological safety, or comparable enterprise initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior executives, physicians, nurses, operational leaders, and frontline teams within complex matrixed organizations.
• Demonstrated experience using patient safety measures, dashboards, analytics, and other forms of safety intelligence to drive organizational action.
• Demonstrated ability to translate national standards, evidence, and emerging practices into organizational strategy and operational expectations.
• Demonstrated ability to build sustainable enterprise capabilities and lead through distributed teams and local leaders while maintaining enterprise standards, visibility, and accountability.

Additional Preferred

• Comprehensive High Reliability Organization transformation experience and/or formal training in high reliability or safety science.
• Demonstrated experience developing Just Culture, psychological safety, human factors, organizational learning, and enterprise patient safety education programs.
• Experience with Serious Safety Event review, Root Cause Analysis, communication and resolution, or comparable organizational learning programs.
• Experience integrating patient safety with clinical informatics, technology, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, or data science.
• Experience in an academic medical center with a record of scholarship, teaching, implementation science, national leadership, or dissemination.
• National recognition or demonstrated leadership in patient safety, high reliability, safety science, human factors, organizational learning, or related disciplines.
• Record of publications, presentations, research, teaching, national committee participation, or other scholarly contributions.
• Experience establishing partnerships with national organizations, academic institutions, and recognized patient safety leaders.