Director of Quality

Kaniksu Community Health is seeking a strategic, collaborative, and forward-thinking Director of Quality to lead our organization's quality improvement, population health, clinical performance, and compliance initiatives. This leadership role offers the opportunity to influence healthcare at an organizational level while making a meaningful difference in the lives of the patients and communities we serve.

About Kaniksu Community Health

Kaniksu Community Health is a nonprofit, award-winning Community Health Center providing integrated, team-based healthcare throughout North Idaho.

We believe healthcare should be accessible, approachable, and affordable for everyone. Through our Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model, we bring together medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, and other services to support patients throughout every stage of life.

At Kaniksu Community Health, we are just as invested in our people as we are in our patients. We have built a positive, engaged team with a strong sense of community and a shared commitment to making a difference. Our employees understand the purpose behind their work and how their contributions help us deliver better care.

About the Role

As our Director of Quality, you will provide strategic leadership for quality improvement, population health management, PCMH initiatives, clinical systems optimization, and regulatory compliance. Working closely with executive leadership, providers, clinical teams, and operational leaders, you will help ensure our systems, processes, and performance measures support high-quality, coordinated, patient-centered care.

This role combines strategic thinking with hands-on implementation. You will use clinical and operational data to identify opportunities, guide improvement initiatives, strengthen reporting and compliance processes, and help teams turn insights into measurable results.

You will also play an important role in advancing clinical technology and exploring innovative solutions, including AI initiatives, to improve efficiency and support effective clinical and operational workflows.

Your leadership will help shape how we measure quality, improve performance, and deliver care across our organization.

Key Responsibilities

• * Provide organizational leadership for quality and performance improvement initiatives.
• * Develop and monitor the annual quality improvement plan, performance goals, and measurable outcomes.
• * Identify performance gaps and lead improvement efforts using data, evidence-based practices, process mapping, root cause analysis, and PDSA cycles.
• * Partner with teams across the organization to implement sustainable workflow improvements and foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous learning.
• * Lead strategies that improve preventive care, chronic disease management, care coordination, and outcomes for high-risk patient populations.
• * Analyze population health data to identify trends, care gaps, disparities, and opportunities for intervention.
• * Collaborate with clinical and operational leaders to improve patient engagement, health equity, and continuity of care.
• * Participate in payer contract relations and negotiations.
• * Lead the implementation, maintenance, and continuous improvement of our Patient-Centered Medical Home model.
• * Coordinate PCMH recognition, renewal, and related evaluation activities.
• * Work with clinical and operational teams to strengthen access, care coordination, patient engagement, and integrated services.
• * Provide strategic oversight of clinical information systems as they relate to quality, reporting, and clinical workflows.
• * Partner with IT and clinical leaders to optimize our Electronic Health Record (EHR), clinical decision support tools, registries, and reporting capabilities.
• * Promote accurate, meaningful, and actionable clinical data to support decision-making and patient care.
• * Identify, test, and support innovative AI initiatives that improve clinical and operational efficiency.
• * Oversee applicable quality-related regulatory, accreditation, and reporting requirements.
• * Support compliance with relevant federal, state, payer, grant, and program requirements.
• * Coordinate quality reporting, audits, reviews, and corrective action plans.
• * Monitor performance against established standards and ensure identified gaps are addressed in a timely manner.
• * Build strong working relationships with providers, nurses, behavioral health professionals, care coordinators, and operational leaders.
• * Facilitate interdisciplinary improvement teams and contribute to leadership and quality committees.
• * Present quality and performance results to leadership, medical staff, and governing bodies as appropriate.
• * Coach and educate staff on quality improvement, performance measurement, and process improvement.
• * Encourage shared ownership of quality and consistent best practices across clinical sites and departments.

• Qualifications & Experience

  Required Qualifications

• * Bachelor's degree in healthcare administration, nursing, public health, health information management, quality improvement, or a related field.
• * At least five years of progressive experience in healthcare quality, population health, clinical operations, performance improvement, or a related field.
• * Demonstrated experience in a direct management role.
• * Experience leading quality improvement and process improvement initiatives.
• * Experience working with clinical data, quality measures, dashboards, and performance reporting.
• * Experience with Electronic Health Records and clinical information systems; AthenaOne experience is preferred.
• * Understanding of PCMH principles and team-based care.
• * Strong knowledge of healthcare quality improvement methodologies and performance management.

• Preferred Qualifications

• * Master's degree in healthcare administration, nursing, public health, quality, or a related field.
• * Experience in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) or community health setting.
• * Familiarity with HRSA/UDS clinical quality measures and reporting.
• * Experience with PCMH recognition or accreditation.
• * Certification in healthcare quality or process improvement, such as CPHQ, Lean, or Six Sigma.
• * Experience with population health analytics, risk stratification, care gap management, EHR optimization, or clinical workflow design.

• Key Competencies

• * Ability to translate complex data into practical strategies and measurable improvements.
• * Strong leadership, project management, problem-solving, and organizational skills.
• * Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to connect with both clinical and non-clinical audiences.
• * Ability to build relationships, influence change, and engage teams across departments.
• * A proactive, detail-oriented approach balanced with a strategic, organization-wide perspective.
• * Commitment to treating people from diverse backgrounds with empathy, dignity, and respect.

• Our benefits include:

• * Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance.
• * Education assistance and guided career pathways.
• 4% employer 401(k) match.
• * Convenient access to in-house medical, dental, and behavioral health services.

• •* Year-round, affordable on-site childcare through KCH Kids' Club.