Senior Program Director

Acute Care Alberta (ACA) is seeking a strategic, people- and outcome-focused, systems thinker in the position of Senior Program Director (SPD), Patient Safety, Patient Experience, and Accreditation. Reporting to the Executive Lead, Acute Care Service Delivery Oversight, the SPD provides province-wide leadership for the governance, strategic direction, oversight, and continuous improvement of patient safety, patient experience, accreditation, and quality assurance initiatives across Alberta’s acute care system. Providing expert counsel to the ACA Executive Team, this role offers a unique opportunity to lead meaningful, system-wide change that improves the quality, safety, and experience of care for Albertans. The SPD leads the development and implementation of provincial strategies, policies, standards, and performance monitoring frameworks, that support quality, safety, regulatory compliance, and service excellence. Leveraging extensive healthcare leadership, business acumen and operational expertise, the SPD oversees a provincial team responsible for advancing system wide policies and driving measurable improvements in acute care delivery.

Focused on advancing patient and family centered care, the SPD provides strategic leadership for initiatives that support safe, accessible, high quality and highly reliable provincial health care. Through engagement with patients, families, clinicians, operational leaders, and system partners, the SPD will identify emerging risks and opportunities, and build alignment that fosters a culture of continuous improvement, safety, accountability, and learning. Utilizing evidence informed approaches, performance data, and change-management practices, the SPD ensures ACA is meeting its organizational strategy, vision, goals and government mandate to ensure the delivery of acute care services adheres to legislative and acute care sector requirements that advance patient safety, patient experience and organizational excellence within Accreditation and regulatory standards of practice. Working collaboratively across the healthcare system, the SPD will establish and maintain strong partnerships with a broad network of internal and external stakeholders, including Accreditation Canada, Health Quality Alberta (HQA), Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the four Provincial Health Agencies (PHAs), health service providers including Provincial Health Corporations (PHCs) and Chartered Surgical Facilities, Health Shared Services, Regional Advisory and Indigenous Councils, Health Advocate Office, Alberta Ombudsman, and the Government of Alberta. Through these partnerships, the SPD will influence strategy, align priorities, and support the consistent application of leading practices across Alberta. To support broad provincial reach and access to talent, the successful candidate may reside and work from any location within Alberta, with travel as required to support organizational priorities and stakeholder engagement.