Chair of Surgery, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center

Los Angeles County Olive View-UCLA Medical Center (OVMC) invites applications for the position of Chair of its Department of Surgery. Reporting to the OVMC Chief Medical Officer, the Chair will provide vision, leadership, and strategic direction to achieve the Department’s clinical, educational, and academic mission within a large urban academic safety-net hospital that is part of an integrated Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS). For the appropriate candidate, there is also the potential for this position to expand into a larger DHS-wide role leading all perioperative activities for the second largest municipal health system in the nation. The Chair will hold an academic appointment as a Vice-Chair of Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The Chair’s responsibilities will include all aspects of managing one of OVMC’s highest profile clinical departments, in addition to serving as a key member of the hospital and health system’s leadership team.

The position offers the opportunity to lead a talented group of faculty and trainees dedicated to providing state-of-the-art surgical care to a diverse patient population and reducing health disparities amongst the underserved. This highly collaborative environment supports a dynamic graduate medical education program with a rich history of training many clinical, academic, and national thought leaders. The OVMC Department is a vital partner to UCLA’s competitive, ACGME-accredited Surgical Residency Programs with 33 residents per year across multiple surgical disciplines as well numerous fellowships.

If the Chief is designated as the leader of all of DHS perioperative services, they will also oversee all DHS services rendered before, during, and after surgery. The Chief will have broad authority to standardize workflows, expand data and analytics tools used to measure perioperative performance, and match supply and demand of surgical services across DHS’ 26 health centers four acute care hospitals and two ambulatory surgical centers.

Candidates must have a strong academic background with a track record of leadership, data-driven management, and innovation. Additional requirements include eligibility for California medical licensure, as well as the ability to successfully collaborate across disciplines and work effectively within a large and complex health delivery system. The Chair will be expected to identify, recruit, and mentor strong faculty and facilitate integration of efforts in the three domains of clinical service, medical education, and academic productivity.

Essential Duties of the Chair of Surgery at OVMC will include, but not be limited to, the following:

1. Serve as a role model academic physician, scholar, and manager for faculty, trainees, and staff in terms of professional and ethical behavior, clinical/research/educational/management productivity, and as a collaborator or partner with colleagues, other departments, and other facilities.

2. Recruit, hire, and retain effective faculty, trainees, and staff to fulfill your department’s clinical and academic responsibilities.

3. Create and maintain opportunities for faculty, staff, and trainees that align their skills and interests with the needs of the department and hospital to permit the clinical, teaching, research, and management success of the individuals, department, and hospital. Act as supervisor, advisor, mentor, teacher, or coach to facilitate the success of departmental faculty, staff, and trainees.

4. Establish leadership succession by recruiting, hiring, training, and mentoring faculty within your department.

5. Use data and analytics tools to implement and measure initiatives and programs that will improve access, quality, and productivity.

6. Act as a member of the senior physician leadership of OVMC; partnering with other senior physician AND non-physician leadership to inform, make, and take responsibility for key decisions as appropriate.

7. Set expectations for your department’s clinical, research, teaching, and management goals in discussion with DHS, Hospital, and other Department leadership at least once a year. Ensure that sufficient resources are available to achieve those goals by advocating for and securing funding from hospital and external sources; improving efficiency; and by reducing or eliminating lower priority services and activities.

8.Prepare clear and accurate job duty statements for faculty and staff prior to the end of each of their rating periods that are developed in collaboration with DHS Human Resources.

9.Establish a robust ongoing professional performance evaluation process and clinical quality improvementprogram that is developed in collaboration with OVMC Quality Department.

10.Ensure training program (as pertinent to your department) compliance with ACGME and other trainingorganization regulations in collaboration with the OVMC Designated Institutional Officer or UCLA DesignatedInstitutional Officer.

11.Ensure compliance with regulatory and productivity standards for outpatient and inpatient care incollaboration with the designated OVMC Medical Administrator.

12.Review, enforce, and comply with all Departmental, Facility, and County of Los Angeles policies.

13.Develop and implement necessary protocols, procedures, policies, and mechanisms to effectively manageyour department related to training, corrective action, administrative controls, and staffing.

14.Develop systems consistent with the size and complexity of your department that ensure that you, as Chair, are aware of significant incidents or issues that occur within your department or by faculty, trainees, and staffwithin your department. Make sure that any such incidents or issues are reported in a timely fashion to theappropriate unit. Should you have any uncertainty about the mechanisms for monitoring or the timing/unit forreporting, then you are responsible for addressing this with the OVMC CMO.

15.Develop and impose appropriate corrective action for faculty, trainees, and staff that fail to abide byDepartmental, Facility, and County policies in consultation with DHS Human Resources.

Essential Duties of the DHS-wide Perioperative Services Director will include but will not be limited to the following:

1.Integrate surgical services across DHS; responsibilities would include determining which surgical serviceswould be offered at which locations, coordination with facilities regarding allocation of resources acrosssurgical sites, and chairing of a DHS-wide Perioperative Services Workgroup

2.Standardize and optimize surgical services across DHS including the development of Expected Practiceguidelines, preoperative clearance processes, and use of surgical queues

3.Expand data tools and improve KPIs which would include measures of surgical access, timeliness, productivity, and patient experience

4.Foster closer partnerships between surgical nursing, administration, anesthesiologists, and surgeons

5.Maximize and expand DHS’ use of Ambulatory Surgery Centers.

6.Implement innovative technological solutions to reduce low-value in-person visits

7.Lead expanded use of Surgical Service Navigators in the pursuit of the goals above

Confidential review of applications, nominations, and expressions of interest will begin immediately until an appointment is made. A letter of interest and curriculum vitae should be submitted to: Shannon Thyne, MD Chair, Department of PediatricsOlive View-UCLA Medical CenterTelephone: 747-210-3035 E-mail: sthyne@dhs.lacounty.gov. Please also formally apply at: https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/lacounty?keywords=chief%20physician