Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs

Overview

The Senior Vice President (SVP), Medical Affairs serves as a senior executive leader responsible for the leadership, integration, standardization, and performance of Medical Affairs across Appalachian Regional Healthcare. This role provides executive oversight for medical staff governance, credentialing, peer review, physician performance and wellness, and the alignment of medical staff practices across the ARH system. The SVP partners closely with the Chief Medical Officer, executive leadership, regional CMOs, hospital leadership, medical staff leaders, Risk Management, Compliance, and other system functions to strengthen physician-hospital collaboration, advance quality and patient safety, and ensure effective and compliant medical staff operations.Consistent with the ARH Executive Level 1 (E1) framework, this position carries Tier 1 organizational impact and supports the execution of short-to-mid-term operational initiatives across multiple hospitals, markets, and clinical service areas.

Responsibilities
• Manages the Centralized Credentialing Office.
• Develops, standardizes, and optimizes the performance of Medical Staff Assistants across the system.
• Optimizes local medical staff leadership performance and adherence to medical staff bylaws, rules and regulations, and peer review requirements.
• Develops and leads the physician wellness committee.
• Serves as the administrative lead of the credentialing committee.
• Develops standardized performance metrics and holds medical staffs accountable for performance.
• Enhances the consistency and value chain of clinical services across ARH.
• Enhances physician-hospital/system collaboration, alignment, and integration.
• Serves in ARH expanded leadership, providing a clinical perspective to major decisions made at the system and hospital levels.
• Improves quality and patient safety.
• Optimizes the performance of physicians and advanced practice providers (APPs) across ARH.
• Improves clinical documentation.
• Achieves sustained compliance with legal, regulatory, and accreditation requirements.
• Supports strategic relationships and alliances.
• Provides guidance, mentoring, and resources to regional CMOs and medical staff leaders to support them in fulfilling the responsibilities of their roles.
• Continuously improves medical staff bylaws, policies, procedures, and other medical staff governance documents.
• Supports ARH leadership and the Board of Directors in holding the medical staffs accountable for fulfilling their responsibilities.
• Provides leadership in strengthening and enhancing the culture of the organization, including the medical staff culture, to promote excellence, collegiality, mutual practitioner accountability, continuous performance improvement, appropriate practitioner independence, and physician participation in medical staff and hospital activities.
• Supports medical staff leaders in developing medical staff strategic goals and works to align those goals with hospital and system strategic priorities.
• Provides leadership in developing mutual understanding and optimizing medical staff and hospital/system goals when differences or disagreements exist.
• Supports timely and effective communication within each medical staff, between each medical staff and the local hospital, across medical staffs, and between ARH leaders and physicians and APPs throughout ARH.
• Provides strong and effective leadership to help individual practitioners, hospitals, medical staffs, and the system prepare for and succeed through changes in the healthcare environment, including evidence-based medicine, patient safety, patient satisfaction, pay-for-performance, the electronic medical record, and cost effectiveness.
• Conducts oneself in a manner that consistently models the ARH mission, vision, and values.
• Collaborates effectively, respectfully, and collegially with other members of the ARH leadership team.
• Respects the medical staff chain of command and recognizes that the SVP, Medical Affairs role is advisory regarding medical staff decision-making and accountability.
• Participates in ongoing leadership education and professional development to continuously enhance the knowledge, skills, and competencies necessary to fulfill the responsibilities of the position.
• Dedicates adequate time to effectively fulfill the responsibilities of the position.
• Regularly prepares for, leads as appropriate, attends, and actively participates in meetings required of the role.
• Periodically reviews performance data regarding individuals, clinical services, hospitals, and the ARH system and uses the data to identify and lead opportunities for improvement.
• Assists in continuously improving the validity and value of data used to measure the performance of individuals, clinical services, hospitals, and the ARH system.
• Maintains the confidentiality of information identified by hospital and ARH leadership as confidential.
• Demonstrates openness to feedback and accountability for the effectiveness with which the responsibilities of the position are carried out.
• Uses feedback and identified opportunities for improvement to continuously improve performance.
• Performs other duties as assigned by the ARH Chief Medical Officer

Qualifications

Education
• Medical Degree (MD or DO) from an accredited medical school required.
• Management degree and/or other significant training in leadership and management required.
• Current, unencumbered license to practice medicine and in good standing.

Minimum Work Experience
• Minimum of five (5) years of clinical practice experience required.
• Demonstrated experience and capacity to lead physicians and physician leaders required.
• Experience in medical staff leadership, medical affairs, credentialing, peer review, quality, physician performance, or related healthcare leadership functions preferred.
• Experience working within a multi-hospital or integrated healthcare system preferred.

Required Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities
• Demonstrated capacity to effectively lead physicians and physician leaders.
• Strong knowledge of medical staff governance, credentialing and privileging, peer review, physician performance, and corrective action.
• Strong understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the medical staff, governing board, and management.
• Knowledge of medical staff bylaws, rules and regulations, policies, procedures, and other governance documents.
• Strong knowledge of patient safety, performance improvement, regulatory, legal, and accreditation requirements.
• Strong skills in communication, negotiation, mediation, conflict resolution, and change management.
• Ability to build collaborative relationships with medical staffs, executive leadership, hospital leadership, and leaders across ARH.
• Ability to balance the needs of individual physicians, physician groups, service lines, hospitals, the healthcare system, and the communities ARH serves.
• Ability to lead organizational and medical staff culture change.
• Knowledge of strategic planning, pay-for-performance, and the drivers of hospital and health system financial performance.
• Ability to use performance data to identify opportunities for improvement and drive accountability.
• Ability to identify and appropriately manage conflicts of interest.
• Ability to lead effectively across multiple hospitals, markets, and clinical environments.