Associate Director of Clinical Operations | Patient & Family Support Program

Job Description

The Associate Director, Clinical Operations provides strategic and operational leadership for a multidisciplinary team within PFSP, including Social Work, Therapy/Psychiatry, Dietetics, Spiritual Support, and Cancer Rehabilitation. This role is responsible for directing daily operations, overseeing clinical programs and services, managing departmental budgets, and ensuring effective staff leadership and development. The Associate Director partners with medical staff and interdisciplinary teams to support high-quality, patient-centered care, drive operational excellence, and advance both short- and long-term strategic goals. Given the breadth of oversight, the ideal candidate will have leadership experience in a clinical discipline such as nursing, therapy, or social work, with a proven ability to lead collaborative, multidisciplinary teams in a complex healthcare environment.

• Promotes departmental focus by establishing goals consistent with organizational practice. Collaborates and coordinates interdepartmental problem solving which supports and enhances operational flow and department efficiency.
• Develops business and operation plans for the departments and for specific programs by preparing, monitoring and controlling budget and ensuring conformity with established budgetary goals. Manage monthly reports to explain variances and make recommendations for corrective action, as needed.
• Reviews and approve departmental expenditures for appropriateness and compliance within budget; reduces expenses and generates increased revenue.
• Creates policies and procedures and implement performance improvement initiatives and set up data collection processes and reporting systems as necessary.
• Develops staffing plan to ensure appropriate staff level based on patient volume and activity. Responsible for hiring, maintaining and improving competencies, and staff development to increase their skills, knowledge and experience. Conduct performance reviews, disciplinary actions and action plans.
• Responsible for assuring staff competency for implementation regarding the provision of age related patient care. Provides appropriate assessments, interventions and evaluations of patients with consideration of developmental milestones in the adolescent, adult and geriatric patient population.
• Drives and ensures positive and effective full service patient care to include patient advocacy. Assures that the unit maintains a patient focus by serving as a role model with consistent focus of customer relations, providing feedback regarding positive and negative patient comments and participating in customer satisfaction initiatives
• Ensures compliance with all federal, state and municipal laws, regulations and ordinances of respective clinical support programs. Maintain staff compliance with CSMC policies, procedures, standards of care, clinical guidelines and protocols.
• Maintains positive work climate, ensure appropriate staff education, promote environment that foster self-directed staff, assist employees to develop and contribute to the organization, and applies human resource policies fairly and consistently.
• Applies Improving Organizational Performance principles in daily oversight of the department/unit.

Qualifications

Education

• High School Diploma/GED - minimum
• Bachelor's Degree Healthcare Administration, Public Health, Business Administration, Science in Nursing, and/or related. - preferred
• Master's Degree Healthcare Administration, Public Health, Business Administration, Science in Nursing, and/or related. For Clinical Support Programs, the MSN is required. - preferred

Experience

• 5+ years of experience working within a healthcare setting, such as medical, surgical, stroke, radiation oncology, oncology, or a related clinical department/unit.
• 4+ years of experience managing an academic clinical department, service line, or related healthcare operation.
• 3+ years of supervisory/management experience, including direct oversight of a department, clinical program, and/or service line within a healthcare setting.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong clinical or operational experience within oncology, ideally with direct exposure to oncology programs, cancer services, radiation oncology, or related multidisciplinary cancer care.
• Experience leading complex clinical operations and partnering with physicians, clinical leaders, and multidisciplinary teams.
• Experience within an academic medical center or similarly complex healthcare environment.

Licenses and Certifications

• No license or certification required