Director of Quality/Risk
Senior Leadership | Acute Care Hospital | Southeast Iowa
The Opportunity
A 217-bed acute care hospital in Southeast Iowa is looking for a Director of Quality/Risk to lead one of the most consequential portfolios in the organization. This is a dual-scope role — you own both the Quality/Performance Improvement program and the Risk Management function, which means you sit at the intersection of patient safety, regulatory readiness, and organizational liability. You report directly to the CNO, hold the Patient Safety Officer designation, and carry visibility to the hospital's Board of Directors and its parent health system.
This is not a coordination role. It is a leadership role with real authority, real accountability, and real impact on how care is delivered across every department.
The Role
You will govern the facility's regulatory compliance programs and lead quality and performance improvement across all service lines and departments. On the quality side, that means facilitating the PI program, managing accreditation and survey readiness, overseeing infection prevention and control, administering the organization's electronic education platform, and working directly with medical staff and the Board to build a culture of safety. You will serve as the facility's Patient Safety Field Manager and lead Leapfrog participation.
On the risk side, you will manage the full risk lifecycle — incident tracking and trending, root cause analysis, FMEA, claims management, credentialing participation, loss prevention, and Board-level reporting. You will collaborate with legal counsel, interface with the system's claims director, and serve as the facility's representative in depositions and litigation support when needed.
You will directly supervise Quality Staff and a Clinical Educator.
What You Bring
- Master's degree in Nursing or a healthcare-related field
- Active RN licensure (Iowa is a compact license state)
- Minimum five years of leadership or management experience in a healthcare setting, with meaningful exposure to nursing, risk, and/or quality improvement
- Strong working knowledge of Joint Commission standards, CMS regulations, and applicable accrediting and licensure frameworks
- CPPS certification required within one year of hire; CPHQ preferred
What We Offer
- Compensation is competitive and negotiable based on experience
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- Life insurance
- Retirement plan
- Paid time off
- System-level resources and support through a national health system affiliation
Why Southeast Iowa
Southeast Iowa moves at a pace that lets you actually live your life. The region sits along the Des Moines River corridor — rolling farmland, river access, and the kind of small-city infrastructure that gets underestimated. You are close enough to the Quad Cities and Kansas City for weekend travel without paying metro-area rent or commuting into a congestion tax every morning. The cost of living here is genuinely low, the outdoor recreation is accessible, and the communities are the kind where people know their neighbors. For healthcare professionals coming out of larger markets, it tends to be a recalibration that sticks.
About the Organization
This is a 217-bed acute care hospital with a 125-year history of serving its regional community. The facility offers a broad service mix including emergency care, medical and surgical care, critical care, acute rehabilitation, obstetrics, pediatrics, cardiac catheterization, diagnostic and therapeutic imaging, wound care, and specialty services. The organization operates under a national health system with dedicated quality infrastructure and system-level support for the Director of Quality/Risk role. Its mission — making communities healthier — is not window dressing; it shapes how leadership makes decisions.