Patient Relations and Safety Manager

When you join the growing BILH team, you're not just taking a job, you’re making a difference in people’s lives.

Reporting to the Director, Patient Safety & Risk Management, the Patient Relations and Safety Manager, in collaboration with Practice Managers, coordinates, investigates, reviews, responds to and facilitates resolution of patient complaints. The Patient Relations and Safety Manager acts as liaison between the patients and the organization’s administration, staff, and physicians so that moral, ethical, operational and care standards are upheld. The Patient Relations and Safety Manager works proactively with the Director and Managers of Patient Safety & Risk Management to mitigate potential liability and safety issues, while managing medical-ethical matters for patients and their families. The Patient Relations and Safety Manager collaborates with other quality, safety, and operational leaders to create and implement a comprehensive Service Excellence training program to achieve the highest level of patient and staff satisfaction and to serve as an internal consultant to all BILHPC practices in customer service training. The Patient Relations Manager oversees a data driven program collecting, tracking and analyzing patient complaints and service excellence trends for optimizing service outcomes and patient safety and focuses the organization on processes that align with meeting and exceeding patient needs and providing safe, effective, high-quality care.

Job Description:

Primary Responsibilities:

• Coordinates, investigates and facilitates resolution of patient complaints or grievances concerning the quality of care and services.  Complies with state and federal regulations regarding the investigation and resolution of patient/family complaints. (essential)
• Consults, advises and instructs management and staff regarding appropriate approaches for dealing with challenging patient issues. (essential)
• In collaboration with others, develops and implements Service Excellence and Service Recovery (SE&SR) training programs to hardwire practices and ensure exceptional service, impacting patient satisfaction and experience.  Promotes a service ethic to influence behaviors of practice assistants, medical assistants, providers and practice manager. Trains teams in person or virtual platforms using evidence-based SE&SR tools and processes. (essential)
• Attends, leads and participates in meetings including employee orientation, STARS training, quality and safety case review and service excellence initiatives. (essential)
• Maintains direct and thorough communication with the Director of Patient Safety & Risk Management, along with Risk Managers to mitigate potential liability and safety issues.  Collaborates with Director and Risk Managers in investigation of high-risk patient events.  Coordinates with Director on adherence to BILHPC policies and initiates policy changes when necessary. (essential)
• Maintains the STARS Feedback patient complaint system, ensuring all necessary monitoring, tracking, and documentation are managed consistently and are regulatory compliant and reported to leadership on a monthly basis.  Collaborates on trending patient experience data. (essential)
• Serves as a resource and support for all BILHPC workforce members to establish an environment of proactive service recovery efforts.  Collaborates with Practice and Regional leaders to meet and/or exceed customer service and quality outcomes. (essential)
• Collaborates with BILHPC Leadership around patient satisfaction initiatives.  Implements quality and service-oriented programs and employee engagement initiatives, leading to meaningful process improvement.  Presents initiatives to senior management and patient advisory groups to initiate meaningful practice improvement. (essential)
• Composes letters and /or emails to patients to set expectations regarding care, in accordance to BILHPC policies (essential)

Job Qualifications: 

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required, Master’s degree preferred
• Minimum three to five years’ experience in patient relations, patient safety, or performance improvement  
• Knowledge of and experience with electronic medical records
• Strong computer skills, including Microsoft office products i.e.  Word, PowerPoint, Excel
• Ability to analyze data, formulate meaningful information
• Ability to work with highly sensitive and confidential information with appropriate discretion.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with RLDatix event reporting software products preferred.
• Training in patient experience, service recovery, patient safety, risk management and quality/performance Improvement methodology, concepts, education and implementation

Competencies:

1.    

Decision Making: Ability to make decisions that are guided by general instructions and practices requiring some interpretation. May make recommendations for solving problems of moderate complexity and importance. 

2.    

Problem Solving: Ability to address problems that are varied, requiring analysis or interpretation of the situation using direct observation, knowledge and skills based on general precedents.

3.    

Independence of Action: Ability to follow precedents and procedures. May set priorities and organize work within general guidelines. Seeks assistance when confronted with difficult and/or unpredictable situations. Work progress is monitored by supervisor/manager.

4.    

Computer Literacy: Advanced skills with Microsoft applications which may include Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Access and other web-based applications.  May produce complex documents, perform analysis and maintain databases.

5.    

Written Communications: Ability to summarize and communicate in English moderately complex information in varied written formats to internal and external customers.

6.    

Oral Communications: Ability to comprehend and communicate complex verbal information in English to medical center staff, patients, families and external customers.

7.    

Knowledge: Ability to demonstrate full working knowledge of standard concepts, practices, procedures and policies with the ability to use them in varied situations. 

8.    

Team Work: Ability to lead collaborative teams for larger projects or groups both internal and external to the Medical Center and across functional areas.  Results have implications for the management and operations of multiple areas of the organization.

9.    

Customer Service: Ability to provide a high level of customer service and staff training to meet customer service standards and expectations for the assigned unit(s).  Resolves service issues in the assigned unit(s) in a timely and respectful manner.

Environmental and Social Requirements 1.    Attention to Task/work/pace maintenance: Work requires close attention to task for work to be accurately completed. Intermittent breaks during the workday do not compromise the work. 2.    Flexibility/Adaptability: Work is varied every day, and the employee needs to be adaptable to respond to these changes and use independent judgment and manage priorities. 

Physical Requirements:

Sedentary work: Exerting up to 10 pounds of force occasionally in carrying, lifting, pushing, pulling objects. Sitting most of the time, with walking and standing required only occasionally.  This job requires fine manipulation using one hand/ keyboard use.    

Pay Range:

$79,000.00 USD - $106,000.00 USD

The pay range listed for this position is the annual base salary range the organization reasonably and in good faith expects to pay for this position at this time. Actual compensation is determined based on several factors, that may include seniority, education, training, relevant experience, relevant certifications, geography of work location, job responsibilities, or other applicable factors permissible by law. 

As a health care organization, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to care for and protect our patients, our colleagues and our communities. Beth Israel Lahey Health requires that all staff be vaccinated against influenza (flu) as a condition of employment.

More than 35,000 people working together. Nurses, doctors, technicians, therapists, researchers, teachers and more, making a difference in patients' lives. Your skill and compassion can make us even stronger.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled