Director, System Patient Safety

The Director of System Patient Safety serves as the operational leader for patient safety across the health system, responsible for standardizing practices, ensuring high reliability, and driving execution of patient safety strategy.

In partnership with the Assistant Vice President (AVP), this role translates system-level patient safety strategy into operational execution, ensuring consistency in patient safety programs, processes, and performance across the organization. The Director collaborates with clinical, quality, and operational leaders to enhance safety culture, reduce harm, and ensure continuous learning.

This role also serves as a primary support leader for Patient Safety Managers, providing frontline guidance, strengthening operational consistency, and supporting team engagement, development, and performance.

Job Responsibilities:

System Leadership & Strategy Execution:

• Executes the AVP’s system-wide patient safety strategy, ensuring alignment across all sites and care settings.
• Leads the standardization of safety processes, tools, and best practices across the organization.
• Establishes and monitors system-level patient safety goals and performance outcomes.
• Provides analysis, insights, and recommendations to executive leadership regarding safety trends, risks, and system priorities.

Operational Leadership & Program Oversight:

• Provides oversight of patient safety event management systems and workflows, ensuring timely review, classification, and closure of safety events.
• Ensures consistency in event review processes, including leader review, root cause analysis, serious safety event classification, and follow-up actions.
• Identifies system trends and patterns in safety events to inform proactive risk reduction strategies.

Frontline Leadership & Team Support

• Serves as a primary resource and support leader for Patient Safety Managers, providing real-time guidance on complex events, investigations, and escalation pathways.
• Promotes consistency in case management, event review standards, and investigation quality across all operating units.
• Supports onboarding, competency validation, and professional development of patient safety staff.

Culture of Safety & High Reliability

• Promotes a culture of safety, psychological safety, and shared accountability across the organization.
• Drives initiatives that strengthen reporting culture, learning systems, and transparency.
• Supports implementation of high reliability principles, including continuous learning, teamwork, and system-based thinking.
• Partners with clinical and operational leaders to ensure frontline engagement in safety initiatives.

Regulatory & Accreditation Readiness

• Ensures system-wide compliance with patient safety regulatory and accreditation standards.
• Leads safety-related survey readiness efforts, including gap assessments, corrective action plans, and sustainment.
• Oversees policy development and updates related to patient safety programs and reporting processes.

Performance Improvement & Collaboration

• Partners with Quality, Risk, Nursing, Medical Staff, and Operations to lead multidisciplinary safety improvement initiatives.
• Oversees reduction efforts for key domains such as serious safety events, falls, medication safety, and workplace violence (as applicable to system priorities).
• Facilitates learning from events through RCA processes, learning teams, and system dissemination of lessons learned.
• Serves as a system subject matter expert for patient safety practices and methodologies.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing, Healthcare Administration, Public Health, or related field.
• 5 years of patient safety, quality, or related healthcare experience
• 3 years of leadership or management experience
• Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS) required

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working within a multi-site healthcare organization or integrated health system.
• Proven track record of leading complex, system-wide initiatives and programs that drive organizational impact.

We are Inova, Northern Virginia’s leading nonprofit healthcare provider. Every day, our 26,000+ team members provide world-class healthcare to the communities we serve. Our people are the reason we're a national leader in healthcare safety, quality and patient experience. And from best-in-class facilities to professional development opportunities, we support them at every step. At Inova, we're constantly striving to be ever better — to shape a more compassionate future for healthcare.

Inova Health is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, color, disability, gender identity or expression, marital status, national or ethnic origin, political affiliation, pregnancy (including childbirth, pregnancy-related conditions and lactation), race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, genetic information, or any other characteristics protected by law.