Does Your Hospital Need a Clinical Operations Manager?

As more hospitals transition to value-based care models, effective patient and clinical workflows grow increasingly urgent. One healthcare role specifically designed to lead and optimize these processes is the clinical operations manager. Qualifications for this position often combine clinical experience with strong regulatory expertise. This blend of therapeutic and business knowledge is essential for improving operational performances while maintaining high quality patient care.

If you’re looking for a leader who can collaborate with physicians and stakeholders to drive better organizational outcomes, an operational manager may offer the strategic direction you need. Use this guide to learn more about the role alongside key hiring considerations. With a clear understanding of how this position may support your facility’s goals, you can build a managerial team that serves performance measures across hospital departments.

Clinical Operations Manager: Role and Responsibilities

The scope and responsibilities of this role often vary by facility type, with priorities shaped by organizational size and operational need. The clinical operations manager role in hospital settings may oversee staffing budgets and help establish hours-per-patient-day targets that inform staffing plans, but typically wouldn’t be responsible for creating daily schedules. In contrast, a small, outpatient clinic operations manager may handle this sort of day-to-day staffing due to narrower operational scope.

Despite these differences, the primary purpose of the role is largely consistent across care settings. They’re meant to promote effective and cost-efficient operations through a variety of leadership and coordination channels. Some examples of more specific clinical operations manager job duties include:

• Providing leadership and direction that encourage a culture of excellence.
• Acting as a liaison between clinical staff and key stakeholders.
• Implementing and maintaining policies, procedures, and best practices that align with industry standards and regulatory compliance.
• Conducting routine audits to establish continued compliance with best practice standards and regulatory requirements.
• Addressing quality indicator data, in addition to patient and staff concerns, to identify and overcome challenges while pursuing the highest levels of satisfaction and patient safety.

Benefits of Hiring a Manager for Your Clinical Operations

Because effective patient flow is closely tied to strategic process improvement, hiring a manager of clinical operations has the potential to benefit hospitals in a number of ways. However, the expense of the added managerial position, along with the potential for misaligned goals or overlapping executive duties, could undermine hiring outcomes if expectations are poorly defined.

When expectations and accountability are clearly established (and supported), many of the disadvantages are outweighed by the potential for operational gains. Review them below to determine whether these benefits may address persistent workflow challenges within your organization:

Effective Change Management

Healthcare organizations can minimize operational disruptions by investing in leadership whose purpose is to guide teams through change. While process innovations and regulatory shifts may introduce short-term challenges, experienced operational leadership can help navigate these changes and translate them into opportunities for sustained performance gains.

Example: By closely monitoring industry trends, a facility’s operations manager was able to anticipate the transition to value-based. This foresight allowed for timely identification of operational inefficiencies while new practice standards were implemented to enhance the resources that drive better patient care. This helped create a smooth transfer between payment models for the organization.

Clearer Interdepartmental Communication

With a liaison and accountable spokesperson, interdepartmental communication can be streamlined across departments, fostering transparency and enhanced collaboration.

Example: Following a severe cold and flu season, a hospital faced negative press related to emergency department wait times driven by the seasonal medical surge. The operations manager was able to communicate (and align) stakeholders’ priorities around improving the facility reputation with input from on-the-ground clinicians. With clear, mediated communication, a solution was devised to avoid extended boarding periods during subsequent patient demand spikes.

Forward-Thinking Healthcare Strategy and Planning

An operations manager is paid to keep processes on the cutting edge of technological and practice advances. They bring a forward-thinking mentality that helps establish a culture of continuous improvement through strategic effort.

Example: A hospital’s manager of clinical operations notices the labor hours being dedicated to devising staffing plans across units. Knowing that AI-assisted predictive modeling is being incorporated by more healthcare systems, they invest in a carefully vetted system to generate optimal staffing targets, tailored to the needs of each department. This reduces the workload of staffing personnel, allowing them to focus on other priorities.

Enhanced Clinical Performance

By supporting the processes (like new staffing model implementations) and resources that enable the highest quality care, operations managers are well-positioned to assist staff in overcoming efficiency hurdles to provide effective, patient-centered care.

Example: Nurses at a hospital have historically been responsible for many point of care (POC) tests (including blood sugar testing). An operations manager devises a new training program for assistant personnel to learn how to administer these POC tests that are well within their practice limitations, ensuring that patients receive the care they need while also freeing registered nurses to focus on tasks more specific to their qualifications.

Improved Quality Indicators and Patient Safety

With the oversight and broad scope needed to track quality data and adjust processes accordingly, an operations manager can help drive quality initiatives from a position of authority. By championing these initiatives, they also help create a culture of safety that benefits staff and patients alike.

Example: A facility’s rate of hospital-associated pressure injuries (HAPIs) continues to rise despite staff training and education events. The clinical operations manager decides to invest in smart hospital beds that automate shifting patients to relieve pressure and prevent future harm.

Sustainable Healthcare Organizational Growth

Effective strategic planning can translate organizational goals into coordinated action while balancing additional priorities. When objectives are pursued according to this structured, multilayered approach, long-term outcomes can be achieved more sustainably over time.

Example: To reduce extended length of stay statistics (associated with prolonged discharge times), an operations manager develops a proposal for creating a hospital discharge lounge. They’re able to secure stakeholder buy-in for the necessary facility expansion by calculating the long-term cost savings of improved patient flow through more efficient bed turnover.

Better Regulatory Compliance

By appointing leadership with a strong understanding of compliance (and who’s dedicated to staying current with regulatory trends), hospitals can facilitate better, streamlined compliance. Operations managers further enable this through routine audits, practice oversight, and policy implementation.

Example: With the roll out of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS’s) TEAM Model, an operations manager prepares the inpatient orthopedic unit by implementing and monitoring new nursing practices that optimize communication for better follow-up care after lower extremity joint replacements. This helps maintain higher reimbursements for these procedures for patients with federal insurance coverage despite the change.

Clinical Operations Management Hiring: Considerations

Now that you’re aware of all the advantages the clinical operations manager role can provide hospital logistics and staffing, here are some key considerations for guiding your future operations management hiring decisions.

1. Clinical and Patient Care Background

Research supports the positive correlation between facility outcomes and the use of clinicians in leadership. By prioritizing candidates who can lend informed decision-making around practice (or policy) updates, a facility improves its chances of buy-in from staff and stakeholders alike.

Additional Considerations:

• Ensure that the clinical experience relates to your facility’s needs. If you’re hiring for a hospital with trauma capacity, does the candidate have experience in a similar acute care setting?
• Many clinical jobs garner expertise without necessitating a classical bedside role. Research nurses are often well versed in overseeing new practice initiatives or promoting quality improvement.

2. Healthcare Leadership and Cross Departmental Development

Alongside clinical expertise, quality candidates must also demonstrate a dedication to strengthening their leadership skills and broadening their healthcare knowledge. The job requires business acumen in addition to clinical wherewithal in order to drive processes that optimize organizational goals across departments (from a single nursing unit to finance, for example).

Additional Considerations:

• Invite candidates to share how they’ve engaged in professional development to broaden their healthcare scope (such as healthcare leadership conference attendance).
• Consider adding a certificate or additional degree that focuses on compliance or healthcare administration as preferred, with a deadline for finishing the additional accreditation after hire.

3. Commitment to Quality Improvement and Excellence

Quality improvement isn’t only a means of optimizing current payment models, it’s a matter of organizational pride and reputation. The best candidate for this position is one who’s invested in quality patient care and pursues clinical excellence authentically. This can be displayed in their choice of outlets for professional (or academic) growth, and assessed via meaningful healthcare administrator interview questions.

Additional Considerations:

• In your administrative job description for this posting, consider including your facility’s mission and cultural priorities as an invitation to candidates who align with those values.
• Consider prioritizing candidates who have engaged in shared governance opportunities and committees aimed at improving patient safety. It shows a dedication to quality that they’re looking to build on with your organization.

Want to Deliver Cost-Effective, High-Quality Patient Care?

The clinical operations manager role in healthcare settings is designed to help streamline patient journeys while benefiting workflow. For less costly measures, our healthcare facility guides and management tips offer a wide range of methods to achieve optimal operations.