Senior Risk Manager

Overview

The Senior Risk Manager serves as a senior subject matter expert within the Quality and Patient Safety Department, overseeing the day-to-day activities of risk management across Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Reporting to the Director of Patient Safety and Risk Management, this role leads the coordination, tracking, and analysis of serious safety events and other high-risk incidents and evaluates the impact of risk mitigation strategies across the organization. The Senior Risk Manager provides advanced consultation and support to other risk managers, clinical and operational leaders, and frontline staff on risk identification, event response, and regulatory reporting. The role collaborates closely with the Senior Manager of Patient Safety to align risk management and patient safety activities, support enterprise-wide learning, and strengthen a culture of safety and accountability.

Located in Boston and the surrounding communities, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a leader in life changing breakthroughs in cancer research and patient care. We are united in our mission of conquering cancer, HIV/AIDS, and related diseases. We strive to create an inclusive, diverse, and equitable environment where we provide compassionate and comprehensive care to patients of all backgrounds, and design programs to promote public health particularly among high-risk and underserved populations. We conduct groundbreaking research that advances treatment, we educate tomorrow's physician/researchers, and we work with amazing partners, including other Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospitals.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

Leads coordination of risk management activities:

• Provides support and guidance to Risk Management and Patient Safety staff in triaging incident reports and escalating potential SEAs and SSEAs; guides immediate containment, equipment sequestering, and evidence preservation.
• Provides support and guidance to Risk Management and Patient Safety in coordinating end-to-end SSE analyses (e.g., RCA, RCA2, SIA): defines scope, assembles and facilitates interdisciplinary teams, conducts interviews and develops timeline, performs causal/contributing factor analyses, and develops SMART action plans with defined measures of effectiveness.
• Facilitates routine and triggered departmental risk assessments, risk mitigation planning, and escalation of critical findings to the Director of Patient Safety & Risk Management.
• Works closely with the Director of Patient Safety & Risk Management to identify key vulnerabilities within the enterprise through risk assessments and/or patient safety event data; and develops recommendations to the Director for strategic risk mitigation.
• Produces clear, concise analysis reports and executive summaries to describe local and enterprise-level impact of safety events, harm, and actions related to safety events; presents findings and learning to leadership, committees, and frontline teams.
• Tracks action plan implementation, verify effectiveness, and closure of events within defined timelines; prevents recurrence by disseminating lessons learned.

Patient safety partnership:

• Works in close collaboration with the Sr. Manager of Patient Safety to plan, implement, and evaluate patient safety initiatives and the annual patient safety plan.
• Aligns SSE learnings with ongoing safety culture work, safety rounding, huddles, and the organizational learning system.

Data, analytics, and proactive risk mitigation:

• Administers or supports workflows within the incident reporting system; analyzes event data to identify trends, hotspots, and emerging risks.
• Conducts and facilitates proactive risk assessments (e.g., FMEA/HFMEA) and partners with clinical and operational leaders to implement mitigation strategies.
• Maintains dashboards and metrics for event-analysis action items, organizational risks, and other topics as deemed necessary and reports out to stakeholders on key metrics as needed

Education and consultation:

• Provides consultative guidance to leaders, clinicians, and staff on risk reduction, just culture, disclosure and apology, documentation, and informed consent.
• Develops and delivers training on event reporting, analysis methods, and high-reliability behaviors.

Interdisciplinary collaboration:

• Partners with Nursing, Medical Staff, Pharmacy, Quality, Compliance, Legal/Claims, Infection Prevention, Facilities, and others to embed risk controls and improve care processes.
• Supports claims and legal processes as appropriate (e.g., timelines, record reviews, risk assessments) in collaboration with Legal and Risk Financing.

Additional expectations:

• Contributes to policy and procedure development related to risk management, event response, and patient safety.
• Maintains confidentiality, including appropriate handling of patient safety work product.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• A continuous improvement mindset with the willingness to challenge assumptions and propose bold, practical solutions.
• Excellent interpersonal skills; ability to engage providers and leaders, foster trust, and promote a just culture.
• Demonstrated ability to function as a change agent, champion continuous improvement, and lead organizational adoption of new processes, tools, and operating models.
• Proven ability to influence and lead cross-functional teams without formal authority.
• Ability to build relationships and function in a highly matrixed, consensus-driven, and academic environment.
• Expert facilitation, investigation, interviewing, and report-writing skills.
• Strong analytical skills; ability to synthesize qualitative and quantitative data into actionable insights and measurable plans. Familiarity with proactive risk assessment methods (e.g., failure mode and effects analyses (FMEA) / healthcare failure mode and effect analyses (HFMEAä)) and high-reliability principles.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including creating executive-level  presentations and clear, actionable reports.
• Proficiency with Microsoft 365 and data visualization tools; familiarity with EHR workflows and documentation risks.
• In-depth knowledge of relevant regulations and standards: The Joint Commission, CMS Conditions of Participation, state reportable events, HIPAA, EMTALA; understanding of peer review protections and PSQIA/PSO preferred.
• Strong project management and time management skills; able to manage multiple concurrent analyses and deadlines.

Minimum Job Qualifications:

Bachelor's Degree in Healthcare Administration, Nursing, Risk Management, Public Health, Business Administration, or related field required. Master's degree in a clinical field preferred. 7 years of progressively responsible experience in healthcare risk management, patient safety, or quality in acute care and/or ambulatory setting required. Demonstrated experience coordinating and facilitating serious safety event analyses (e.g., root cause analyses (RCA) / root cause analyses and actions (RCA2) / security impact analyses (SIA)) and driving action plan implementation and monitoring required. Experience with incident-reporting systems and data analysis (e.g., Origami Risk, RLDatix, Microsoft Excel, statistical process control (SPC)/control charting)) required. Quality improvement/change management experience preferred. Prior experience mentoring or informally leading peers and managing cross-functional projects strongly preferred.

License/Certification/Registration Required:

Clinical licensure required (e.g. RN, NP, PA, PharmD). Certified Professional in Healthcare Risk Management (CPHRM) preferred (or obtained within 12 months of hire).

Supervisory Responsibilities:

None

Patient Contact:

None

Special Working Conditions:

• Full-time, exempt position.
• Hybrid 2-3 days per week on site per organizational policy.
• Occasional travel between sites.
• Participation in after-hours/on-call support for serious events as needed.

At Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, we work every day to create an innovative, caring, and inclusive environment where every patient, family, and staff member feels they belong. As relentless as we are in our mission to reduce the burden of cancer for all, we are committed to having faculty and staff who offer multifaceted experiences. Cancer knows no boundaries and when it comes to hiring the most dedicated and compassionate professionals, neither do we. If working in this kind of organization inspires you, we encourage you to apply.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is an equal opportunity employer and affirms the right of every qualified applicant to receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, national origin, sexual orientation, genetic information, disability, age, ancestry, military service, protected veteran status, or other characteristics protected by law.  

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Pay Transparency Statement

The hiring range is based on market pay structures, with individual salaries determined by factors such as business needs, market conditions, internal equity, and based on the candidate’s relevant experience, skills and qualifications.

For union positions, the pay range is determined by the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

$128,700.00 - $147,600.00