Vice President, Clinical Quality & Safety

Posting Date

DaVita is a health care provider focused on transforming care delivery to improve quality of life for patients globally. The company is one of the largest providers of kidney care services in the world and has been a leader in clinical quality and innovation for 25 years. DaVita Kidney Care treats patients with acute kidney failure and end stage renal disease in our clinics, through our hospital partnerships and in our Home programs. DaVita serves over 200,000 patients at more than 2,700 outpatient dialysis centers in the United States and has an expanding international presence with operations in 14 countries. To learn more, visit DaVita.com/About.

DaVita is seeking an experienced nephrologist to serve as Vice President, Clinical Quality & Safety within the Office of the Chief Medical Officer. This national role provides physician leadership across three connected areas: clinical quality, patient safety, and infection prevention; medication and clinical protocol development; and the clinical evaluation of new therapies, devices, and diagnostics.

This is a role with unusual reach - you will lead DaVita's approach to multiple critical clinical initiatives. The medications and protocols you oversee and deploy will improve outcomes for more than 200,000 patients. The safety programs you will lead will further reduce the risk of dialysis complications.

The thoughtful evaluations you provide on new machines, innovations, and medications will influence what DaVita adopts nationally.

You will work as the physician expert and clinical partner to business and operational leaders, collaborating in running these programs day to day. They own execution while you provide clinical judgment, evidence, and credibility with practicing nephrologists.

Who You Are

You are a board-certified nephrologist who has spent years in dialysis care and knows what actually changes practice at the bedside. You are drawn to systems problems: why a safety signal was missed, how a protocol can be improved, or why a medication is preferred in one region and underused in another. You hold a high bar for evidence and understand when to say no to a new device or therapy that does not meet your standards. You are comfortable being the physician voice in a room of business leaders, and equally comfortable being challenged on the data. You want national scale and you are ready to take it on.

Responsibilities

Clinical Quality, Patient Safety, and Infection Prevention

• Serve as the physician executive for DaVita's AHRQ-certified Patient Safety Organization (unique among dialysis providers), meeting the clinical qualification requirements of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act and Rule.

• Provide physician leadership to dialysis quality improvement, partnering with clinical quality leaders on the priorities, measures, and interventions that improve outcomes across the organization.

• Provide clinical direction to the national patient safety agenda, including review of adverse events and safety signals, and guidance on where clinical risk warrants intervention and new tools.

• Educate senior executives, operations and quality leaders on key patient safety findings to help drive improvement priorities.

• Serve as the clinical leader on infection prevention, including bloodstream infection reduction, tuberculosis and hepatitis B prevention and surveillance, and employee health matters.

• Provide clinical leadership and strategy for existing immunization initiatives and research opportunities (seasonal influenza, hepatitis B, etc.) and identify new and impactful emerging population health opportunities in vaccines.

Medication and Clinical Protocol Strategy

• Serve as the physician lead for medication management and clinical protocol development / revision, with primary focus on anemia management and bone mineral disease.

• Serve as Co-Chair of the Pharmacology and Therapeutics Committee in partnership with pharmacist colleagues to maintain a robust formulary, provide high level formulary exception review, and utilization interpretation and reviews.

• Provide clinical expertise and study interpretation of anemia therapies, including erythropoiesis-stimulating agents, HIF prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors, and iron management.

• Provide clinical expertise and study interpretation on bone mineral disease management, including calcimimetics and phosphate binders.

• Provide evaluation of novel therapeutics in anemia and mineral bone disease, and other areas as needed

• Provide clinical guidance on additional pharmacotherapy topics, including anticoagulation, thrombolytics for catheter clearance, and GLP-1 receptor agonists

• Partner with research and development colleagues on next-generation and technology-enabled protocol design, ensuring clinical soundness and physician adoption.

Clinical Evaluation of New Therapies, Devices, and Diagnostics

• Serve as the clinical partner to DaVita's laboratory leadership on test utilization, result interpretation standards, reference ranges, and integration of lab data into clinical workflow.

• Provide clinical leadership to the evaluation of new dialysis machines and devices, collaborating closely with biomedical engineering colleagues on clinical readiness, human factors, and safe deployment.

• Bring evidence standards and clinical judgment to enterprise decisions about adopting new equipment, assays, and therapies at scale.

• Develop and steward DaVita's clinical relationships with academic medical centers and nephrology training programs, including opportunities for collaborative research, fellow education, and joint publication.

Broader Clinical Leadership

• Represent DaVita as a clinical leader in national forums and professional society meetings.

• Contribute clinical expertise to related enterprise priorities, including fluid management, dialysis adequacy, and physician communication on new modalities.

• Lead or support additional clinical initiatives at the direction of the Chief Medical Officer. This portion of the role is intentionally flexible and will evolve with clinical priorities and the strengths of the person in the role.

• Identify emerging clinical risks, quality opportunities, and innovations that may shape the future of kidney care and inform DaVita's clinical strategy.

Qualifications

• M.D., D.O., or MBBS degree, with board certification in Nephrology.

• Active, unrestricted medical license, and qualification as a licensed or certified medical professional appropriately qualified in the relevant area of care, as required for patient safety organization physician designation.

• Minimum 10 years of post-training experience as a practicing nephrologist, including experience as a dialysis medical director.

• Demonstrated leadership in patient safety, quality improvement, event review, or clinical risk management. Prior patient safety organization, patient safety officer, hospital quality leadership experience, or outcomes research training strongly preferred.

• Working knowledge of anemia management, bone mineral disease, and dialysis pharmacotherapy, with experience developing or governing clinical protocols.

• Proven ability to partner effectively with non-physician business and operational leaders.

• Ability to interpret complex clinical data, evaluate strength of evidence, and translate findings into clinical recommendations.

• Credible and confident communicator across executive, clinical, regulatory, and external audiences.

• Preferred: publication record in patient safety, anemia, bone mineral disease, or dialysis outcomes; experience evaluating devices or diagnostics; experience partnering with academic medical centers.

Practice and Travel

• This is a full-time role. The successful candidate may continue clinical practice up to 8 hours/week. This time is carved out from DaVita employment and must not interfere with DaVita responsibilities.

• Travel of approximately 25 to 30 percent, including facility visits, national clinical meetings, academic partner engagements, and professional society meetings.

What We'll Provide:

More than just pay, our DaVita Rewards package connects teammates to what matters most. Teammates are eligible to begin receiving benefits on the first day of the month following or coinciding with one month of continuous employment. Below are some of our benefit offerings.

• Comprehensive benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401(k) match, paid time off, PTO cash out
• Support for you and your family: Family resources, EAP counseling sessions, access Headspace, backup child and elder care, maternity/paternity leave and more
• Professional development programs: DaVita offers a variety of programs to help strong performers grow within their career and also offers on-demand virtual leadership and development courses through DaVita's online training platform StarLearning.

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At DaVita, we strive to be a community first and a company second. We want all teammates to experience DaVita as "a place where I belong." Our goal is to embed belonging into everything we do in our Village, so that it becomes part of who we are. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and comply with state and federal affirmative action requirements. Individuals are recruited, hired, assigned and promoted without regard to race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.

This position will be open for a minimum of three days.

Compensation for the role will depend on a number of factors, including a candidate's qualifications, skills, competencies and experience. DaVita offers a competitive total rewards package, which includes a 401k match, healthcare coverage and a broad range of other benefits. Learn more at https://careers.davita.com/benefits

Colorado Residents: Please do not respond to any questions in this initial application that may seek age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You may also redact this information from any materials you submit during the application process. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.

Beware of Recruitment Fraud

DaVita will never ask for payment or personal financial information at any point in the hiring process, nor will we ever communicate with you using email addresses outside of the DaVita secure network. If you receive a request like this, it is not legitimate. Do not share your information.

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