Vice President of Clinical Affairs & Patient Safety

Job Description:

Reporting directly to the Chief Medical Officer, the Vice President of Clinical Affairs & Patient Safety is an executive leadership role serving as the authoritative clinical voice across NextGen Healthcare.

This leader drives clinical efficacy, product safety, and human-centered design across our health IT portfolio through two core strategic pillars:

Clinical Center of Excellence (CCoE) Leadership: Direct, mentor, and scale a team of clinicians and healthcare specialists who serve as embedded clinical leads, infusing real-world workflow insights and evidence-based medicine throughout the entire product development lifecycle—from early concept through implementation and commercialization.

Enterprise Patient Safety & Governance: Serve or provide direct executive oversight to the designated enterprise Patient Safety Officer and Chair of the Patient Safety Committee. Direct the Critical Issue Dispositioning (CID) program to ensure rigorous clinical risk triage, close cross-functional collaboration with R&D on root cause analyses, and transparent clinical governance.

Strategic Clinical Leadership & Product Partnership

• Lead & Scale the Clinical Center of Excellence (CCoE): Direct, mentor, and expand a high-performing, multidisciplinary team of licensed clinicians (advanced practice providers, nurses, and clinical specialists) who serve as primary clinical subject matter and workflow experts across enterprise initiatives.
• Drive Clinical Integration Across the Lifecycle: Champion the integration of evidence-based clinical insights into product roadmap planning, user-centered design, architecture, implementation, and commercialization strategies in close partnership with Product Management and Engineering leadership.
• Evaluate Clinical & Tech Innovation: Identify, evaluate, and provide executive guidance on emerging clinical methodologies, health IT standards, and advanced technologies (e.g., ambient clinical intelligence, AI/ML clinical decision support) to maintain competitive advantage and clinical efficacy.

Patient Safety & Clinical Risk Governance

• Executive Patient Safety Leadership: Serve as, or directly manage, the corporate Patient Safety Officer (PSO), establishing enterprise-wide standards, protocols, and a culture centered on clinical quality, risk reduction, and proactive patient safety.
• Lead Critical Issue Dispositioning (CID): Provide executive leadership for the Critical Issue Dispositioning program, ensuring systematic triage, risk containment, and client communications while partnering collaboratively with R&D to inform technical investigations and remediations of potential patient safety events.
• Chair the Patient Safety Committee: Lead the executive Patient Safety Committee, establishing rigorous governance protocols, driving closed-loop feedback into engineering sprints, and maintaining robust audit trails.
• Regulatory & Industry Alignment: Maintain authoritative knowledge of evolving clinical quality measures, regulatory frameworks (e.g., ONC HTI, HIPAA, on digital health / SaMD), and industry patient safety reporting standards, translating shifts into proactive corporate strategies.

External Representation & Stakeholder Engagement

• Key Clinical Liaison: Serve as a credible clinical executive and ambassador to client C-suites, clinical advisory councils, regulatory bodies, and industry associations to reinforce trust and showcase NextGen’s commitment to patient safety and clinical excellence.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Legal, Regulatory Affairs, Client Success, and R&D leaders to align operational risk mitigation with broader enterprise business objectives.

Perform other duties that support the overall objective of the position.

Education Required:

• Doctor of Medicine (MD) or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degree from an accredited institution.

Experience Required:

• 10+ years of progressive, combined experience in active clinical practice and healthcare information technology (HIT) / digital health environments.
• 5+ years in an executive or senior clinical leadership role within an EHR vendor, healthcare technology company, or large health system/ambulatory network with demonstrated success building and leading multidisciplinary clinical teams.
• Proven track record of influencing software development life cycles, user experience, and clinical informatics strategy within ambulatory or enterprise EHR systems.
• Direct experience leading or managing clinical risk governance programs, patient safety initiatives, clinical quality improvement, or cross-functional safety committees.

Or, any combination of education and experience which would provide the required qualifications for the position.

License/Certification Required:

• Completion of an U.S. accredited residency program.
• Current, unrestricted, and active U.S. medical license in good standing.
• Current or previous Board Certification in a recognized medical specialty (ABMS or AOA).

Note: Maintenance of limited active clinical practice is strongly supported and encouraged, provided it does not conflict with executive responsibilities.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• Knowledge of: Deep mastery of ambulatory care delivery, clinical workflows, and human-factors engineering, coupled with the ability to translate complex clinical concepts into technical requirements. Comprehensive understanding of health IT regulatory standards, patient safety principles, and risk mitigation methodologies.
• Skill in: Exceptional executive communication, stakeholder management, and relationship building, with the clinical credibility to align clinical, technical and commercial leaders around shared quality outcomes. Proven talent leadership in coaching, mentoring and developing licensed medical professionals.
• Ability to: Navigate high-stakes, ambiguous safety or quality issues under pressure with transparency, decisiveness, and analytical rigor. Drive cross-functional execution and maintain closed-loop accountability across distributed technical and clinical teams.

The company has reviewed this job description to ensure that essential functions and basic duties have been included. It is intended to provide guidelines for job expectations and the employee's ability to perform the position described. It is not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all functions, responsibilities, skills and abilities. Additional functions and requirements may be assigned by supervisors as deemed appropriate. This document does not represent a contract of employment, and the company reserves the right to change this job description and/or assign tasks for the employee to perform, as the company may deem appropriate.

NextGen Healthcare is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.