The Quality Improvement Consultant examines complex organizational issues in order to identify, develop, and execute on projects that will impact the strategic priorities for quality improvement. This individual is primarily responsible for:
Partnering with operational leaders and their teams to drive breakthrough clinical improvement aligned with strategic priorities by developing process/performance improvement (PPI) plans by scoping projects and establishing charters, directing/managing implementation teams, and bringing projects to completion
Driving a continuous improvement mindset and educating leaders and teams on various improvement methodologies
This role oversees and executes cross-departmental, cross-functional, complex projects requiring strong collaboration with dyad clinical and operational leaders, central business operations, and other stakeholders. The ideal candidate will be sophisticated in project management and performance improvement methodologies (six sigma, lean, IHI, etc.), and will provide coaching to less experienced consultants. This role will also calculate return on investments in quality projects and support tracking and reduction of costs for patients and the organization.
This clinical position focuses on evidence-based science, clinical practice, community care standards, and scope of practice to drive performance excellence with integrated workflow design, technology, patient empowerment strategies, and quality measurement.
Responsibilities/Job Description
Lead investigations of complex quality and safety issues in order to prevent recurrence, maximizing learning, reduce costs, and improve patient outcomes.
Facilitate multifaceted quality, safety and performance improvement projects, working with local teams to develop robust and sustainable improvements, implement changes, and monitor outcomes.
Responsible for the creation of evidence-based practice and protocols to ensure delivery of exceptional patient care
Accountable for designing, implementing, and maintaining standardized clinical tools to support quality patient care outcomes for the care continuum, including patient empowerment strategies
Ensures practice based evidence is in line with community standards and regulatory requirements, including licensure authorities
Leads process improvement initiatives for clinic operations, quality measurement, patient safety, and EMR optimization
Use industry tools and methods to identify and initiate analysis of systems to prevent future errors; collaborate with facility leaders and system experts to implement corrective actions
Apply principles of reliable design to ensure delivery of evidence-based care and reduction in preventable harm
Investigate/explore complex patient safety, quality, and organizational issues in order to identify and develop strategic priorities for improvement.
Identify and Initiate evaluation and redesign of systems to improve quality measures; identifying necessary resources to fully implement quality and performance improvement; partnering with leaders to act on any resource barriers; focusing on reliability and applying the principles of reliable design to improve the consistent delivery of quality clinical care
Assists leaders and teams in establishing performance standards and metrics as well as identifying goals while ensuring that partnerships exist with other areas of the business to develop, implement, or refine workflows or data collection and management methods to ensure accurate measurement and tracking of process and improvement results
Strong working knowledge of regulatory requirements affecting the development of implementation strategies (e.g., CMS, JCAHO, HIPPA, etc.).
Provide coaching to less experienced consultants as well as be involved with department training efforts as assigned.
Anticipate and identify barriers to change and develop countermeasures in conjunction with leadership to overcome barriers
Promote and utilize health equity principles when reviewing data and developing improvement opportunities using a holistic approach
Qualifications
Required
Education:
Bachelors Degree in Nursing or related disciplines (or related field)
Certifications:
One Lean Certification and/or Six Sigma Green Belt (or completion of such certification within 2 years of hire)
Experience:
5 + years in outpatient, ambulatory, or post-acute healthcare setting
Knowledge of Epic Systems or comparable EMR
Demonstrated relational qualities (active listening, clear/concise communication, humble inquiry, effective relationship building, understanding of customer requirements/meeting them where they are at)
Experience with development and/or deployment of a comprehensive quality and safety program infrastructure.
Experience leading and partnering with operational leaders on improvement work, preferably in a healthcare setting
Experience facilitating multi-disciplinary groups through successful improvement initiatives and change
Advanced in analytical skills including collection, analysis and interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data and the creation of sustainable measurement systems
Advanced skills in MS Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Project, SharePoint, OneNote), statistical analysis software (Minitab), data presentation software (R, PowerBI, Tableau) and data source platforms (EPIC, Strata, etc.)
Preferred
Education:
Masters Degree in healthcare related disciplines (or related field)
Certifications:
Six Sigma Black Belt; Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ)
Together with the University of Minnesota and University of Minnesota Physicians we have created M Health Fairview. M Health Fairview is the newly expanded collaboration among the University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota Physicians, and Fairview Health Services. The healthcare system combines the best of academic and community medicine — expanding access to world-class, breakthrough care through our 10 hospitals and 60 clinics.Fairview Health Services (fairview.org) is an award-winning, nonprofit health system providing exceptional care across the full spectrum of health care services. Fairview is one of the most comprehensive and geographically accessible systems in the state, with 10 hospitals—including an academic medical center and long-term care hospital—serving the greater Twin Cities metro area.Its broad continuum also includes 60 primary care clinics, specialty clinics, senior living communities, retail and specialty pharmacies, pharmacy benefit management services, rehabilitation centers, counseling and home health care services, medical transportation, an integrated provider network and health insurer PreferredOne. In partnership with the University of Minnesota, ...Fairview’s 32,000 employees and 2,400 affiliated providers embrace innovation to drive a healthier future through healing, discovery and education.
