Director, Patient Safety & High Reliability

UNC Health Care; Morrisville (NC); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

UNC Health Care seeks a Director of Patient Safety to provide strategic and operational leadership for system-wide patient safety and high reliability. The role designs and implements a national operating system for identifying safety risks, prioritizing actions, and sustaining improvements across UNC Health’s expanding network.

Reporting to senior executives, the director partners with risk management, quality, infection prevention, and clinical leadership to ensure culture of safety, Just

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree preferred.
• CPPS certification required within two years of hire; CPHQ or related certifications preferred.
• Seven (7) years of progressively responsible experience in patient safety or related fields; management experience required.
• Experience leading patient safety/high-reliability work across multiple hospitals or campuses; advising senior executives.

Responsibilities

• Develops system-wide patient safety strategy, roadmap, governance and portfolio of work.
• Leads high-reliability transformation and implementation roadmap with leadership alignment.
• Establishes risk-focused approach to identify, assess, prioritize and mitigate safety threats.
• Governs safety event learning, RCA/Learning from Defects processes and ensures timely reviews.
• Owns corrective-action processes, measures completion, and sustains improvements.
• Leads safety culture and Just Culture initiatives across the system.
• Oversees TeamSTEPPS strategy and training to embed reliability skills.
• Advises executives and governance on safety risk and action plans.
• Partners with Risk Management and other functions to address cross-cutting risks.
• Engages patients and families in safety governance and learning.
• Leads a geographically distributed department and resource planning.
• Develops leadership capability, onboarding, and succession in patient safety.
• Defines measures of harm, reporting performance, and high-reliability adoption.
• Manages Unified Quality budget and aligns resources with risk reduction and growth.

Skills

Leadership

Patient safety

Strategic planning

High reliability

Change management

Risk management

Executive coaching

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree preferred

Job description

UNC Health Care seeks a Director of Patient Safety to provide strategic and operational leadership for system-wide patient safety and high reliability. The role designs and implements a national operating system for identifying safety risks, prioritizing actions, and sustaining improvements across UNC Health’s expanding network.

Reporting to senior executives, the director partners with risk management, quality, infection prevention, and clinical leadership to ensure culture of safety, Just