Clinical Operations Director

About the Role

The Clinical Operations Director assumes responsibility and accountability for all patient care activities, department operations (primary care, urgent care, imaging, and lab services), and staff leadership. This role serves as part of the RCMS leadership team, representing the organization in accordance with its philosophy and objectives, fostering highly skilled professional practice, and developing highly functioning interdisciplinary teams.

This Director’s impact extends beyond the clinical environment, collaborating with all RCMS leaders within the regional healthcare community to contribute to the community's well-being while bringing professional experience and perspective to the broader organizational leadership team.

Responsibilities

• Provides administrative and nursing leadership to a team of multi-disciplinary clinical support roles for the delivery of patient care within primary care, urgent care, imaging, and lab operations.
• Leads nursing and other clinical teams in establishing goals and standards to support patient care, ensuring the delivery of high-value, quality care and achievement of organizational objectives.
• Develops and fosters partnerships with physicians, nurse practitioners, physician associates, behavioral health practitioners, dental practitioners, and other employees to facilitate initiatives, resolve operational challenges, and improve processes.
• Collaborates closely with the Director of Quality & Population Health to support MAC teams, ensuring chart scrub, prep, documentation, communication, and coordination meet quality goals for all patients and RCMS exceeds quality metrics for Population Health Management (PHM) and Partnership.
• Develops and establishes clinical policies and procedures, setting a structure for providing safe, consistent, and effective patient care.
• Collaborates with Informatics/IT/EMR staff and outside vendors to ensure all staff are trained and utilize the NEXTGEN EMR system to its fullest capacity in alignment with established clinical workflows.
• Ensures protocols comply with FQHC, State, and Federal system standards, policies, procedures, applicable laws, and regulations.
• Takes a strategic approach in identifying best practices, standardizing workflows/processes, and developing plans of action to implement changes, ensuring clinical staff operate efficiently and safely.
• Establishes and communicates priorities and operational objectives to ensure staff success in achieving RCMS’s mission and 5-year strategic plan.
• Sets performance standards for nursing staff, medical assistants, and technician roles, ensuring staff are trained and supervised to adhere to the highest levels of safety and customer service.
• Develops, implements, and ensures corrective action plans are executed to address or minimize operational risk and improve performance when organizational standards are not met.
• Makes rounds with staff, patients, and physicians, addressing concerns, conducting service recovery, and ensuring appropriate patient care.
• Reviews patient complaints and incidents, responding appropriately and engaging senior leadership when additional involvement is needed.
• Promotes effective communication between departments and teams to improve and standardize workflows.
• Identifies and removes barriers that hinder the delivery of patient care or process/productivity improvement and efficiency.
• Develops and maintains working relationships with external peers and/or local/state/federal agencies to facilitate collaboration on issue resolution.
• Collaborates with the Chief Medical, Executive, and Operations Officers when negotiating external contracts or audits, ensuring terms align with operating policies and procedures.
• Provides guidance and/or direct intervention in resolving operational challenges or complex situations.
• Ensures executive leadership is informed of operational issues that may impact the community or require proactive intervention.

Strategy & Planning

• Works with senior leadership to develop and establish short- and long-term strategic plans related to the annual budget and RCMS’s 5-year strategic plan, including clinical encounter goals, population health management goals, quality goals, and long-term capital facility and asset planning.
• Communicates strategic clinical operational goals and priorities to ensure incorporation into RCMS’s planning and budgeting.
• Leads the goal-setting process and provides a roadmap for staff to accomplish goals.
• Monitors progress, developing action plans to address issues and challenges.
• Develops staffing plans in conjunction with the Chief Executive, Medical, and Operations Officers to address current and future resource needs.
• Identifies process improvement opportunities and ensures action plans align with short/long-term operational objectives.
• Monitors operational trends and recurrent issues, ensuring staff performance meets expected standards.
• Actively includes other departments in the development of new or existing programs.
• Participates in internal and external committees and task forces to support new or ongoing initiatives.

Financial Management

• Establishes operating and capital budgets with input from the executive team, ensuring financial targets are achieved and variances are addressed timely.
• Approves operating budgets and capital requests.
• Works with executive leadership to achieve financial targets, ensuring effective utilization of personnel, resources, and supplies aligns with budget expectations.
• Reviews financial reports and implements corrective action plans to address unfavorable variances.
• Reviews and approves employee expense reimbursements and billing statements from vendors supporting clinical operations.

Management of People

• Provides and fosters an inclusive work environment that sets high standards for staff engagement, collaboration, and a supportive culture of teamwork.
• Manages assigned staff, making hiring and termination decisions, and reviewing/approving timekeeping records.
• Establishes expectations with all direct reports, holds individuals and work teams accountable, and ensures job descriptions accurately reflect responsibilities and expectations.
• Evaluates staff performance and determines/approves merit increases.
• Provides constructive feedback, coaching, and counseling, involving human resources support when needed.
• Implements disciplinary actions and/or performance improvement plans to achieve desired performance.
• Provides opportunities for career development, role expansion, and cross-training for direct reports who demonstrate exemplary performance.
• Conducts staff meetings for informative and educational purposes.
• Responds timely to alleged violations of policies, procedures, regulations, and standards of conduct by evaluating or initiating investigative procedures, consulting with Human Resources or Compliance as needed.
• Ensures staff maintains current and appropriate professional credentials.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Nursing is required. Health Administration or related field experience/education is preferred.
• Current RN-Registered Nurse license in California.
• BLS-Basic Life Support Healthcare Provider certification.
• 5-7 years of relevant experience in a clinical or hospital environment.

Pay

$114,000 - $163,000 per year.