SQPE Specialist I

Join Cleveland Clinic and experience world-class healthcare at its best. Cleveland Clinic Lutheran Hospital is a proud Magnet Hospital awarded by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the highest honor an organization can receive for professional nursing practice. On our team, you will provide stellar patient care, receive endless support and appreciation, and build a meaningful career at one of the most respected healthcare organizations in the world. 

As a Safety, Quality, and Patient Experience (SQPE) Specialist I, you will direct safety, quality, and patient experience activities within your assigned scope and coordinate improvement initiatives using the Cleveland Clinic Improvement Model while partnering with clinical leadership to establish objectives and key results. In this role, you will partner with physicians, nursing leaders, and interdisciplinary clinical teams to advance patient experience, safety, and quality outcomes, leveraging clinical knowledge and expertise to identify opportunities for improvement, align patient experience strategies with care delivery practices, and implement evidence-based initiatives that enhance patient-centered care. You will collaborate closely with frontline caregivers, clinical leadership, and stakeholders to drive performance improvement efforts, promote best practices in communication, care transitions, and patient engagement, and ensure compliance with regulatory, accreditation, and organizational standards.

This position supports strong performance and achievements of patient experience, quality, safety, and utilization goals while supporting implementation of requirements from regulatory and accreditation bodies, identifying opportunities for continuous improvement, and fostering a culture of exceptional patient care. Throughout the role, you will model Cleveland Clinic's Core Values and serve as a trusted clinical partner in advancing safety, quality, patient experience, and continuous improvement across the assigned scope of responsibility.

A caregiver in this role works Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (flexible)

A caregiver who excels in this role will:

• Direct safety, quality, and patient experience work within assigned scope of responsibility. 

• Coordinate and implement improvement initiatives using the Cleveland Clinic Improvement Model. 

• Partner with clinical leadership to set objectives and key results.  

• Model Cleveland Clinic Core Values and behavioral standards.  

• Coordinate with cross functional stakeholders to ensure compliance with all standards and favorable performance on safety, quality, utilization, and experience metrics.  

• Participate in engraining the safety, quality, and experience requirements as outlined by regulatory and accreditation bodies. 

• Manage performance improvement regarding SQPE with all departments providing patient care.  

• Act as an accountable partner for all clinical areas within their areas of responsibility  

• Understand and implement elements of performance as outlined by regulations, bylaws, and rules and regulations established by the medical staff.  

• Act as the primary resource for staff to facilitate overall operations of programs.  

• Develop meaningful quality assurance and improvement activities with clinical and operations leadership to establish when a deviation in standard practice has occurred.  

• Analyze performance data and participate in improvement strategy development.  

• Act as a consultant in educating and evaluating clinical and support department staff regarding quality management regulations and standards of care.  

• Support medical staff quality assurance activities such as peer review, ongoing professional practice evaluation, and focused professional practice evaluation.  

• Develop and assure processes to monitor performance and identify where intervention is needed.  

• Incorporate regulatory and accreditation standards into improvement activities around SQPE.  

• Collaborate on development of required plans such as the performance improvement plan, safety plan, infection control plan, and others as required by governance.  

• Incorporate enterprise priorities and regulatory requirements and benchmarks ensuring alignment to one standard of care across locations.  

• Drive continuous improvement activity around quality, safety and patient experience priorities and coordinate improvement projects.  

• Facilitate dashboard reviews, data analysis and decision-making from data.  

• Identify and address root causes to lead to sustainable improvement.  

• Manage stakeholder relationships, project risks and project changes.  

• Lead projects and facilitate multidisciplinary teams leveraging advanced continuous improvement and project management tools.  

• Coach smaller improvement teams to success with their quality improvement projects at the local level.  

• Report on medical errors and near misses, as well as corrective actions taken.  

• Oversee the management and use of medical error information.  

• Apply the Cleveland Clinic cause analysis process to identify key factors that lead to failures in SQPE.  

Minimum qualifications for the ideal future caregiver include:

• Bachelor’s degree in nursing, Healthcare Administration, Business, Engineering, or related field

• OR five years of related experience with SQPE and performance improvement programs or related healthcare experience  

• One year of related experience with Safety, Quality, Patient Experience, Accreditation, Risk, Clinical, or Continuous Improvement

• Healthcare Accreditation Certification Program (HACP) or Certified Joint Commission Professional (CJCP)

• Familiarity with basic statistical analysis, CI (Continuous Improvement) tools and change management techniques.

• Understanding of patient safety best practices, joint commission standards, and conditions of participation

• Effective communication skills and ability to collaborate at all organizational levels

Preferred qualifications for the ideal future caregiver include:  

• Master’s degree

• Registered Nurse (RN) 

• Preferred certifications: Process Improvement certification: Lean, Six Sigma, etc., certified in Infection Control (CIC), certified Patient Experience Professional (CPXP)

• Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) preferred and can be accepted in lieu of CPPS

• Experience in working with Joint Commission, HFAP, CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid: Government agency that provides reimbursement for accredited trainees) surveys process preferably in a leadership/coordination role

• RN clinical experience

• Familiar with Microsoft, Power Point, etc.