Chief Medical Officer / Vice President, Medical Affairs

The Chief Medical Officer / Vice President, Medical Affairs (CMO/VPMA) is the hospital executive physician leader for SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital and a member of the hospital executive team. The CMO/VPMA will lead in the development and implementation of a culture of patient safety and physician satisfaction, while ensuring effective standards and guidelines for quality patient care. The CMO/VPMA manages and supports the ongoing functions of the medical staff, provides ongoing medical staff development, provides leadership (in conjunction with the physician utilization director or whatever title we agree on for this function) in the areas of effective utilization review, case management, medical staff regulatory compliance and medical informatics, as well as serves as a liaison to the network teams.

The ideal candidate will have a passion for quality with a proven record of continuous quality improvement.  This role will lead and foster the collaboration efforts between Saint Louis University and SSM Health—St. Louis.  In addition, the ideal candidate shall manifest behaviors, which exemplify the spirit of the Saint Louis University and SSM Health mission and values while acting within the parameters of the Bylaws of the Corporation and established policies and procedures. Serves as a visionary, proactive servant leader with the ability to obtain support and foster an organizational environment that encourages others to share leadership, ownership, responsibility and accountability to accomplish the vision of the organization. Fosters the cultural norms of Present: Purposeful, Respectful, Exceptional, Supportive, Engaged, and Tenacious. Strong leadership skills to help identify opportunities for improved operating efficiency, growth, profitability and compliance are required.

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS

REPORTS TO: President, Saint Louis University Hospital, with a matrix reporting structure to the Regional Chief Medical Officer

INTERRELATIONSHIPS: Works closely with Saint Louis University department chairs to improve quality of care, patient safety and patient experience at Saint Louis University Hospital.  Interacts with hospital and regional medical staff members, residency program directors, the hospital’s Chief Nursing Officer, other ministry leadership, community officials and leaders; employees including risk and regulatory departments.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

CONNECTIVITY AND CULTURE

• Demonstrates and imparts the mission, values, and vision of Saint Louis University and SSM Health in daily activities, operational functions, processes, and environment.
• Works effectively as a team member in a dynamic executive environment where collegiality, subsidiary and sharing responsibility is required and highly valued within a matrix organization.
• Promotes teamwork within and across the network by maintaining positive and productive intra-entity and intradepartmental relationships and utilizing effective problem-solving skills.
• Adheres to Saint Louis University and SSM Health Standards of Ethical Conduct, displaying, as applicable, ethical behavior in the areas of business ethics, legal compliance, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, vendor relationships and the reporting of questionable activities.

EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE

• Leads courageously by putting the patients’ interests first while maintaining the vitality of the SSM Health and Saint Louis University Missions.
• Promotes a high degree of intra-entity, interdepartmental and intra-professional collaboration, helping to organize, clarify, and prioritize the institution’s collective clinical priorities and utilization goals.
• Portrays a positive and professional image of Saint Louis University and SSM Health and cultivates trust and open communication with members of the medical staff and administration.
• Maintains an active clinical practice 10% of the time.
• Develops, implements and evaluates policies, procedures, processes and standards of practice to assure the provision of safe and quality patient care.
• Handles confidential and sensitive matters with and without direct supervision.
• Is instrumental in preventing sentinel events to include: root cause analysis meetings with quality, entity sentinel event reviews, regional sentinel event committees and sentinel event presentations.
• Partners with patient safety/quality team to review event reports and address trending concerns.
• Maintains knowledge and achieves compliance with federal, state, and local regulatory requirements, licensure, accreditation requirements, record procedures and internal controls.
• Establishes and implements key quality metrics to evaluate the quality of patient care. Responsible for patient quality outcomes and readmissions.
• Leads peer review activities.

GROWTH AND PARTNERSHIPS

• Establishes and nurtures physician and employee relationships by fostering a culture of engagement to continuously improve the patient experience and a performance-oriented culture.
• Develops relationships with physicians in the community to encourage physician growth.
• Utilizes timely and effective means of informing and updating physician and employees on organizational, system-wide and industry issues. Encourages and provides opportunity for input and feedback regarding improvement opportunities.
• Facilitates an environment that promotes team building and collaboration. Motivates, encourages and empowers physicians and employees to achieve personal, team and organization goals.
• Recognizes individual and team accomplishment.
• Responsible for leading medical staff credentialing/privileging functions to include: pre-application approval, resolving application issues, assigning temporary privileges and meeting regulatory requirements for documentation.
• Supports and provides facility oversight to the graduate medical education programs along with the Saint Louis University Designated Institutional Official and Associate Dean for GME.
• Serves as a member of the Network Credentialing Meeting, System Medical Executive Committee, and the Medical Staff Nominating Committee.
• Serves as an expert on bylaw information including: resolving complicated bylaw issues.
• Supports all functions and decisions of the Medical Executive Committee and plays a highly influential role on this committee.
• Participates in ministry meetings to include: executive team meetings, physician recruitment, PT/OT review, leadership, infection control, no harm, community advisory board, governance, department meetings, town hall meetings, etc.
• Participates in network meetings to include physician leadership council.
• Strengthen relationships in the community with skilled nursing facilities and other post-acute care facilities.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

• D. or D.O degree with Board certification is required.
• Master’s degree preferred in areas of Healthcare Administration, Public Administration, Business Administration, Law, or Medical Management.
• Minimum of five years clinical practice experience
• Greater than five years of increasing responsibility in medical management as a hospital CMO, CQO, or VPMA.
• Proven medical leadership competencies, including demonstrated success in planning, organizing and leading in a large, complex organization.
• Three years or more of experience working in an ever-changing academic environment.
• Experience in a highly matrixed environment
• Certification in CQI or Lean Methodologies are preferred.