Primary Care Medical Director: Care Access Solutions, Nurse Connect, Technology/Quality Improvement

Description

Position Summary:

We are seeking a dynamic and visionary Medical Director with a deep passion for access, clinical excellence, and technology-driven innovation. This physician leader will serve as a system-wide access clinical champion, driving enterprise strategies that enhance patient access, streamline referral pathways, and promote provider alignment through analytics, quality improvement, and technology integration. This role will also provide clinical leadership and oversight for the UNC Nurse Connect team, ensuring compliance with best practice and regulatory standards. This position is currently structured for 16 hours per week (.4 FTE), however there is flexibility with FTE arrangements based on the candidates needs and preferences.

Key Responsibilities:

• Serve as the clinical voice of system access across all strategic initiatives, aligning enterprise goals with the needs of providers and patients.
• Serve as clinical leader for Nurse Connect team:
  
  • Collaborate with nursing staff and healthcare professionals to develop and implement clinical protocols and guidelines.
  • Conduct regular reviews of clinical cases and nursing assessments, offering constructive feedback and support to improve patient outcomes.
  • Serve as a resource for clinical questions and complex case reviews, providing expert guidance to nursing staff.
  
  
• Act as a liaison between clinical operations, ISD (Information Services Division), and CASI leadership, representing the clinical perspective on access-related technology and routing logic.
• Champion clinical order governance and referral development and management initiatives.
• Present clinical insights and enterprise access strategies at physician forums, operational meetings, and executive-level discussions.

• Attend and actively contribute to core workgroups and committees, including:
  
  • EPUG (Enterprise Provider User Group)
  • Ambulatory Provider Meetings
  • Patient Engagement Groups
  
  
• Gather and integrate ordering provider feedback to influence enterprise-wide access solutions.
• Serve as a Referral Governance leader, aligning system processes with the evolving clinical landscape.
• Collaborate with system leadership to initiate disaster relief assistance or conduct unexpected incident command support for the system.

• Analyze clinical data and metrics to identify trends, areas for improvement, and opportunities for enhanced patient care.
• Review historical referral data to categorize diagnoses into meaningful clinical groupings to inform the referral process.
• Translate clinical experience into the Diagnosis Matrix to guide referral appropriateness and to enhance decision support tools.
• Partner with ISD teams to optimize scheduling logic, routing pathways, and provider availability strategies.

• Drive quality improvement initiatives related to access, nurse triage, and care continuity. Participate in the development of strategic goals for CASI Solutions and Nurse Connect.
• Stay current with advancements in telehealth practices and healthcare technologies, integrating innovations into clinical practice as appropriate.
• Act as a change agent to guide provider alignment with best practices and industry standards.
• Collaborate with analytics teams to interpret data and guide strategy through an analytic, outcomes-driven mindset.
• Facilitate training and continuous education for nursing staff on clinical protocols, tools, and technologies utilized in the telehealth setting.

• Build and nurture strong, trust-based relationships with providers across the system.
• Champion the provider voice, ensuring that access solutions align with real-world clinical workflows and priorities.

Qualifications:

• Primary Care MD or DO (Family Medicine or Internal Medicine) with active medical license and board certification.
• Demonstrated leadership experience in clinical operations, quality improvement, or system-based initiatives.
• Deep understanding of ambulatory operations, referral workflows, EMR (Epic) functionality (including Cadence), and provider-patient access dynamics.
• Strong experience with analytics, data interpretation, and strategy development.
• Proven ability to lead through influence and collaborate across clinical, administrative, and technical teams.

For more information, please contact Laura Oakes at laura.oakes@unchealth.unc.edu.

Legal Employer: NC HEALTH

Entity: Shared Services

Organization Unit: Network Physician Recruitment

Work Type: Per Diem

Standard Hours Per Week: 16.00

Work Assignment Type: Hybrid

Work Schedule: Day Job

Location of Job: US:NC:Morrisville

Exempt From Overtime: Exempt: Yes

This position is employed by NC Health (Rex Healthcare, Inc., d/b/a NC Health), a private, fully-owned subsidiary of UNC Heath Care System. This is not a State employed position.

Qualified applicants will be considered without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.

UNC Health makes reasonable accommodations for applicants' and employees' religious practices and beliefs, as well as applicants and employees with disabilities. All interested applicants are invited to apply for career opportunities. Please email applicant.accommodations@unchealth.unc.edu if you need a reasonable accommodation to search and/or to apply for a career opportunity.