Position Description: Clinical Director Cancer Center - Stanford Hospital & Clinics

Our highly prestigious client, Stanford Hospital & Clinics (SHC) is known worldwide for advanced patient care, particularly for the treatment of rare, complex disorders in areas such as cardiac care, cancer treatment, neurology, neurosurgery and organ transplants.  Stanford Hospital includes 611 licensed beds.  The clinics offer care in more than 100 specialties, including cancer, neurology, surgery and organ transplantation. 

Patients come to Stanford from all over the Western United States and the world, often for specialized procedures unavailable elsewhere.  In recognition of excellent care, the hospital and physicians consistently rank among the top in the nation in surveys by consumers and health care professionals. In July, 2002, Stanford was named to the Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report.  The Hospital was ranked #14 out of 100, in 2004.

Management

An overview of top management of the hospital shows an exceptional blend of clinical, operational and business expertise in the field of acute and specialty care and services.  Underlying the management team's skill-set is a passionate, deep-seeded and visionary commitment to excellence, innovation and growth.  The style of management and the organizational culture of excellence are deeply rooted in teamwork and mutual support.

The level of teamwork and support among the management staff is extraordinarily high and remarkably effective.  This group of Managers and Directors, with their collaborative style and complete commitment to the mission, is the heart of the department’s success.  It is readily apparent that the management team consistently emphasizes teamwork, individual achievement and making the job fun.

To complement the management team, an individual must be able to blend their individual success into that of the entire team and share in the commitment and the satisfaction of taking care of the healthcare needs of the community.

Center Overview

Designed with the physical and emotional well-being of patients in mind, the warm and welcoming environment of the Stanford Cancer Center offers streamlined care focused on comfort, privacy, and health.

The Cancer Center brings together 15 multidisciplinary programs at Stanford formerly performed in groups or individuals into one facility. This consolidation makes treatment more convenient for patients and gives physicians greater opportunities to work together to coordinate optimal patient care.   In addition to the latest treatments and advanced technologies, the Cancer Center also integrates a variety of innovative services designed with patient needs and comfort in mind.

The Cancer Center at Stanford is the largest clinic in the Medical Center.  For the physicians there are six office Pods with dedicated specialties.  The specialty per Pod is flexible and can be changed from day-to-day.  There are 62 exam rooms.  The Center is conducting over 300 clinical trials.

The Center is expected to be designated a Comprehensive Cancer Center within one year.

Position Description

The Clinical Director Cancer Center plays a key role in achieving the Center’s objective to effective growth and continues to be a leader in cancer treatment and research.  The successful candidate will be a "clinical leader" with the ability to adopt the vision of the Cancer Center.  In this leadership role he/she will be responsible for all aspects of clinic operations including directly supervising and ensuring the professional development of all staff (nursing, physician assistant and  technical staff,), ensuring patient and staff satisfaction, collaborating with the administration/physicians on a model of care delivery integrating financial accountability.  The successful candidate will be responsible for providing nursing leadership, management and staff development including patient care delivery, human resource management of the clinical cancer care team, performance improvements and fiscal management.  He or she will play a key role in achieving the Center’s objective to effective growth and continue to be a leader in cancer treatment and research.  The successful candidate will be an individual with the ability to adopt the vision of the Cancer Center.

The Clinical Director  collaborates closely with other cancer care departments including two inpatient units and an ambulatory infusion/treatment, aphaeresis area. This individual will function as the nursing liaison for the cancer center clinic in the institution.  As the expansion of the Center continues and its treatment and research efforts in the area of clinical research increases, the Center will require an administrator who can develop and implement a parallel expansion of treatment and procedures, the research infrastructure and organizational goals.  The successful candidate will provide the leadership traits, skill-set and the vision needed to provide a customer-oriented mentality within the Center.  The right person will have a proven track record in introducing successful change needed to implement a business-like approach with the faculty and staff. 

There are a total of 300 FTE’s in the Center of which 125 are clinical staff.

Key Responsibilities

• Direct and manage clinical functions and patient care activities while staying within budgetary allocations.
• Ensures satisfactory relationships with medical staff including clear and concise communication.
• Encourage effective cost containment practices through management and staff development.
• Oversee that Center is compliant with recommended standards of the governing bodies.
• Responsible for developing agenda of assigned patient care and hospital committees or work groups.
• Preliminary screening of incident reports and quality improvement forms and ensures follow through.
• Interact and participate with staff of departments to accomplish the goals of the institution as a whole.
• Responsible for overseeing both short and long term planning in all aspects of clinical services.
• Responsible for ensuring completion of personnel evaluations, job descriptions, polices and procedures of assigned departments.
• Responsible for participating and leading hospital committees or work groups as deemed appropriate.
• General supervision of departmental personnel records and verification of documentation of current activity, licensure and certification.
• Keeps appropriate clinical staff informed of changes in department functioning within budgetary allocations.
• Monitor departmental operations to ensure functioning within budgetary allocations.
• Consistently combine ethical judgment and technical skills within policy and legal guidelines of the hospital.
• Provide counsel and guidance to staff on personnel related problems.
• Objectively evaluate the attitude, morale and interpersonal relationships of staff and promote methods to improve these areas when needed.
• Ensure as needed review of all manuals and polices and procedures is done.
• Ensure timely preparation and evaluation of reports, payroll records and other statistical data as required.
• Ensure prompt investigation of complaints regarding service by department and take appropriate actions.
• Ensure strict confidentiality guidelines are adhered to and remedial actions taken with regard to such violation.
• Willingly accept responsibility for special projects as assigned.
• Maintain professional growth.
• Participate in administrative and other meetings as required.
• Ensure open format, scheduled department staff meetings, and encourage staff participation.
• Effectively provide direction and policy interpretation to staff and other department members in overseeing their areas of responsibility; address special operation concerns.

Reporting Relationship

The Clinical Director Cancer Center reports to the Administrative Director of the Cancer Center. 

Research Overview

The Research Program at Stanford University's School of Medicine is well known for the strength of its programs. It has a celebrated record of making discoveries in the life sciences and biomedicine that reveal the fundamental rules that govern life and then determining how those rules apply to disease detection, treatment and prevention. Today, the School of Medicine is building on that strong tradition and launching new programs for the future.

Research Program Highlights

• More than 500 principal investigators.
• Oversee 1,600 sponsored research projects annually.
• Investigators are located in 16 clinical and 11 basic science departments.
• In 2002, the School of Medicine received grants and contracts worth more than $272 million in support of research, teaching and patient care.
• On a per-person basis, our faculty receives more NIH (National Institutes of Health) funding than any other medical school in the United States.

Personal Characteristics

The Clinical Director Cancer Center needs to possess the patience, self-confidence and communication skills necessary to work with the clinical and administrative staff and the Physicians.

First and foremost, this individual needs to be a team player, be a superb communicator and have the style of a diplomat, i.e., be able to work in harmony with other operational entities and to negotiate agreements so each party benefits. It is imperative that he/she be skilled in bringing together the staff functions in a spirit of harmony and with a single-minded purpose.

A hands-on leader who can develop a strategic vision of the department and has the expertise to develop values and goals for a diverse group of constituents will be successful.  The successful candidate will have a proven record of accomplishment of strong leadership skills to ensure that the improvement process within the department continues, that priorities are established and the goals are met.

The successful candidate will be a person who possesses a strong work ethic, rejects setbacks and values accomplishments highly.  An action-oriented personality that deals with specifics within a broad conceptual framework will be most effective in this position.  This individual will have an appropriate sense of urgency to react to situations quickly and decisively.

Qualifications

The Clinical Director requires a strong leader that can manage challenging situations and effectively facilitate change. Master's degree preferred.

Compensation

The compensation plan is based on a competitive base salary commensurate with the experience and the demonstrated accomplishments of the successful candidate.  It will reflect the opportunity at the hospital. The hospital has an excellent employee benefits package, consisting of medical coverage, a dental plan, life insurance, Defined Benefit Retirement Plan and a 403 b program with employer matching.

Bio - Administrative Director

Ms. Pat Byrne is a senior executive experienced in strategic planning, operations, human resource management and program development.  She is responsible for all aspects of cancer care delivery and development of the service line at Stanford Hospital and Clinics. Ms. Byrne is an expert in cancer care delivery.

Previous experience included development of the oncology service line in a 500 bed academic center a primary clinical affiliate of the Harvard Medical School.  She had complete management responsibilities for Clinical Trials office, Research facilities, Radiation Oncology, Medical Oncology and Surgery.

In addition developed affiliations with six  non- Harvard sites to deliver various aspects of cancer care including radiation oncology and chemotherapy administration. Administrative director of two NCI awarded SPORE grants.

 Principal in Byrne-Swanson Health Care Consulting. Administrative Director of the Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Center, Boston Ma.

Administrative Director of the Cardio-Vascular Service Line, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA.

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