Job Overview

The Director of Quality and Patient Safety serves as the facility-based quality leader for Sentara Leigh Hospital, providing strategic oversight for the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of quality, patient safety, accreditation, regulatory readiness, and performance improvement programs.

This leader partners closely with hospital executives, medical staff, physician leaders, nursing leadership, Infection Prevention, Risk Management, and the System-Wide Patient Safety Director to reduce risk, enhance patient outcomes, and foster a culture of safety across a leading 274-bed acute care hospital recognized for nursing excellence, stroke care, orthopedic and spine services, heart and vascular care, and maternity services.

The Director leads event review and root cause analysis, safety tools, and behavioral training initiatives; oversees OPPE and medical staff peer review; manages reporting and tracking systems for ongoing quality monitoring; and coordinates annual evaluations and DNV/ISO surveys, including follow-up actions and internal audit compliance. The role also advances organizational goals related to CMS Core Measures, PFP, MU quality data, and Q-HIP programs.

Education

  • Bachelor's Degree (Required)
  • Master's Degree (Preferred)

Location

  • Onsite: Sentara Leigh Hospital, Norfolk, VA

Experience

  • Minimum of 5 years of leadership experience required
  • Minimum of 5 years of healthcare operations experience required
  • 3 years of hospital quality leadership and performance improvement experience strongly preferred
  • Experience leading quality improvement, patient safety, accreditation (DNV/ISO), and regulatory readiness initiatives, including guiding senior leadership on improving safety culture
  • Experience with quality event review, root cause analysis, OPPE and peer review, and performance improvement programs, including reporting and tracking systems
  • Knowledge of CMS requirements, CMS Core Measures, PFP, MU quality data, Q-HIP, and healthcare regulatory standards
  • Demonstrated ability to build relationships with physicians, nursing leaders, executives, and multidisciplinary teams, and to lead, mentor, and develop quality professionals

Sentara is currently reviewing market compensation for this role. Our Talent Acquisition team will be able to share more specific information during the recruiting process.

Sentara Leigh Hospital, located in Norfolk, VA, is a 274-bed acute care facility that opened in 1903 and relocated to its present site in 1977. Our hospital completed a renovation in 2016, including two new patient towers, a beautiful atrium, and a multi-story parking garage. Sentara Leigh Hospital includes a dedicated Orthopedic Hospital providing patients access to a full continuum of orthopedic care, from the preoperative phase and surgery to rehabilitation and home care services. Along with being a recognized accredited Primary Stroke Center, and Magnet hospital for nursing excellence, we also specialize in orthopedic and spine care, heart, vascular, maternity care, and general surgery. We are also home to the region’s only 24-hour hyperbaric oxygen program that helps speed up the healing of carbon monoxide poisoning, wounds that won’t heal, infections in which tissues are starved for oxygen, airborne chemical exposures, and scuba diving accidents.

Sentara Health, an integrated, not-for-profit health care delivery system, celebrates more than 135 years in pursuit of its mission – “we improve health every day.” Sentara is one of the largest health systems in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, and among the top 20 largest not-for-profit integrated health systems in the country, with 34,000 employees, 12 hospitals in Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina including 10 hospitals with the prestigious Magnet® recognition, and the Sentara Health Plans division which serves more than 1 million members in Virginia and Florida. Sentara is recognized nationally for clinical quality and safety, and is strategically focused on innovation and creating an extraordinary health care experience for our patients and members. Sentara was named a Health Quality Innovator of the Year (2024), was recognized by Forbes as “America’s Best-In-State Employer” (2024), “Best Employer for Veterans” (2022, 2023), and “Best Employer for Women” (2020), and named to IBM Watson Health’s “Top 15 Health Systems” (2021, 2018).

Learn more

A woman smiling as a healthcare worker helps her with arm exercises in a bright, sunlit room.
A woman smiling as a healthcare worker helps her with arm exercises in a bright, sunlit room.
A woman smiling as a healthcare worker helps her with arm exercises in a bright, sunlit room.

Our Culture

At Sentara, our differences are our strengths. The unique backgrounds, skills, and experiences that each Sentara colleague brings to work make Sentara special and allow us to deliver excellent service and care to our patients, members, and communities.

Our Benefits

We are committed to consistently enhancing our training, advancement tracks, work-life benefits, and more. Our goal is to make you feel more excited to be here every day!

Two female doctors in lab coats smiling and chatting in a hospital hallway.
Two female doctors in lab coats smiling and chatting in a hospital hallway.
Two female doctors in lab coats smiling and chatting in a hospital hallway.
Two nurses in scrubs smiling and chatting during a break, one holding a coffee cup in a bright hospital setting.
Two nurses in scrubs smiling and chatting during a break, one holding a coffee cup in a bright hospital setting.

The Sentara Nursing Experience

Making a meaningful impact on health requires compassion, dedication, continuous learning, teamwork and collaboration. At Sentara, we also recognize that in valuing the professional and personal well-being of our nurses, we build a stronger, more supportive workplace for our nurses. And that’s making us healthier from the inside out. These principles unite our nurses across various roles and locations.

Two nurses in scrubs smiling and chatting during a break, one holding a coffee cup in a bright hospital setting.
Surgical assistant in scrubs and mask operates medical monitor in an operating room with other staff in the background.

The Sentara Clinical Experience

No matter where you choose to join us, in an inpatient or outpatient setting, you will be part of an interdisciplinary Clinical team passionate about quality care and patient safety. You will have access to the tools and technologies you need to succeed and the chance to learn and grow through training and educational programs so you can advance your career as a Clinical professional.

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The Sentara Support Services Experience

Each day, the Sentara Support Services team helps improve healthcare at more than 300 Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina sites. We perform various patient care activities, provide multiple services, and handle administrative functions that support our patients and their families. These vital functions include assisting the medical team in all aspects of medical care, such as treatments, procedures, and diagnostic and laboratory testing.

Smiling medical professionals in scrubs and a lab coat sitting at a table.

The Medical Group Experience

As part of Sentara Health, Sentara Medical Group providers have diverse opportunities across regions and inpatient and outpatient locations. For those providers based in one of 12 hospitals, we have close working relationships with the administration, ensuring a collegial and collaborative environment where all can come together around shared initiatives.

Guided by a dedicated board of providers, Sentara Medical Group not only offers leadership opportunities for its providers but also underscores the group’s crucial role in fulfilling Sentara’s overarching mission to meet the needs of our diverse patient populations, some of our most vulnerable communities. Our physicians and APPs enjoy opportunities for both personal and professional career growth through a network of resources aimed to cultivate an environment suitable for a lifelong career home.

Your Perspective Matters

Nurses are the heartbeat of our exceptional team. Our approach empowers nurses to actively participate in decision-making. Our nurses have a stake in shaping their workplace as well as their own career growth; one of the benefits of our focus on supporting and valuing team members. This framework encompasses our nursing mission, vision, values, philosophy, and the essential elements of our Professional Practice Model.

This image illustrates the Sentara Nursing Professional Practice Model. Read more about it on The Sentara Nurse Experience page.

Visual representation of the Sentara Nursing Professional Practice Model.

We Are an Equal Opportunity Employer

Sentara Health is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to the hiring, advancement, and fair treatment of every individual. Sentara and its affiliates do not discriminate against any individual or group of individuals on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, marital status, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, medical condition, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristics.

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We Are an Equal Opportunity Employer

Sentara Health is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to the hiring, advancement, and fair treatment of every individual. Sentara and its affiliates do not discriminate against any individual or group of individuals on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, marital status, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, medical condition, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristics.

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