Director, Quality and Clinical Excellence - F/T - Days

Who We Are

UCI Health is the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine, and the only academic health system based in Orange County. UCI Health is comprised of its main campus, UCI Medical Center, a 459-bed, acute care hospital in in Orange, Calif., four hospitals and affiliated physicians of the UCI Health Community Network in Orange and Los Angeles counties and ambulatory care centers across the region. Listed among America's Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report for 23 consecutive years, UCI Medical Center provides tertiary and quaternary care and is home to Orange County's only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, high-risk perinatal/neonatal program and American College of Surgeons-verified Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center, gold level 1 geriatric emergency department and regional burn center. UCI Health serves a region of nearly 4 million people in Orange County, western Riverside County and southeast Los Angeles County.

To learn more about UCI Health, visit www.ucihealth.org.

Your Role on the Team

Position Summary:

The Director, Quality and Clinical Excellence is responsible for the operational leadership, strategic direction, and systemwide coordination of all quality and clinical excellence programs across UCI Health, encompassing quality analytics, clinical registries, and key clinical initiatives. The incumbent is accountable for the development and execution of integrated strategies that strengthen organizational performance in reputational and regulatory quality programs, ensure compliance with accreditation and reporting requirements, and drive measurable improvement in patient safety indicators, sepsis prevention, and other key clinical programs in alignment with regulatory, accreditation, and organizational standards. This role maintains accountability for the alignment of data-driven insights, evidence-based practice, and continuous improvement methodologies to foster a culture of safety, continuous learning, and clinical excellence across the health system. The Director leads the development and implementation of departmental goals, policies, and performance improvement initiatives, and is responsible for the selection, onboarding, competency validation, performance evaluation, and professional development of all assigned coworkers. This position collaborates with clinical operations, medical staff leadership, nursing leadership, compliance, and executive leadership to advance UCI Health's reputation for exceptional patient outcomes, safety, and overall organizational performance. The Director exercises wide latitude of authority in determining departmental goals and measures to achieve systemwide quality and clinical excellence objectives with limited oversight.

What It Takes to be Successful

Required Qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience in healthcare quality and patient safety with demonstrated ability in design, implementation and sustainment of performance improvement activities in a health care setting including skillful application of continuous quality improvement and patient safety sciences
• 5+ years of progressive administrative leadership experience in quality improvement, performance improvement, operational excellence or patient safety in an academic medical center or large, integrated, tertiary health care setting providing expert level understanding of the art and the science of quality improvement and patient safety
• Exceptional level of professionalism, discretion and the ability to work on highly sensitive and confidential projects
• Knowledge of current trends and best practices in healthcare quality improvement and patient safety
• Successful track record of effective, team-oriented working relationships with physicians, nurses and other health professionals
• Outstanding negotiation, written, and verbal communication skills
• Outstanding listening, interpersonal relationship building, and problem-solving skills
• Able to prioritize and manage multiple projects simultaneously with demonstrated ability to complete projects successfully on time and within budget
• Master's degree in Nursing, Public Health, Pharmacy, Business, Administration or related field
• Minimum 5 years of supervisory/management experience
• Minimum 7 years' experience working as a RN, other licensed clinical practitioner or similar experience in a related field
• Must possess the skill, knowledge and ability essential to the successful performance of assigned duties

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in Lean-Sigma as an improvement methodology
• Experience in managing participation in required and voluntary registries
• Current Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality, CPHQ and/or Certified Professional in Patient Safety (CPPS)

Total Rewards

We offer a wealth of benefits to make working at UCI even more rewarding. These benefits may include medical insurance, sick and vacation time, retirement savings plans, and access to a number of discounts and perks. Please utilize the links listed here to learn more about our compensation practices and benefits.