Director Purchasing Collaborative

Vanderbilt Health - Nashville, TN

Full-time - Manager

Nashville, TN

Hospitals

About the position

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is seeking a leader for the Vanderbilt Health Purchasing Collaborative. This position is pivotal in providing overall leadership for a unit or department, focusing on developing goals, objectives, policies, and procedures that align with institutional policies and goals. The successful candidate will supervise, coordinate, and evaluate departmental activities, ensuring effective operations through program development and process improvement. The role involves preparing operating and capital expenditure budgets, performing personnel administration functions, and ensuring that the department meets its financial targets while maximizing clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. The leader will be responsible for initiating changes in policies and procedures, analyzing the long-term impact of decisions, and ensuring the department operates efficiently. This includes designing, implementing, evaluating, and marketing programs that enhance patient care and satisfaction. The position requires participation in management meetings to keep top management informed of departmental issues and to facilitate information exchange across departments. The leader will also develop staffing plans, define performance expectations, and create an environment that encourages self-development and learning among staff. In addition to these responsibilities, the role requires establishing quality assurance standards and ensuring compliance with clinical enterprise accreditation and licensure. The leader will model behavior consistent with the institution's mission and values, fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation within the department and across the organization. This position is essential for driving the mission of advancing health and wellness through preeminent programs in patient care, education, and research.

Responsibilities

• Develop goals and objectives for the department based on interpretation of institutional policy and goals.
• Plan to achieve goals or establish priorities.
• Help department understand, share and support the vision.
• Initiate changes in or develop new policies, procedures and/or methods.
• Analyze long-range impact of decisions and plans.
• Ensure the most effective operations of the department through program development, process improvement and coordination/integration of processes with other departments.
• Design, implement, evaluate and market programs to maximize clinical outcomes, functional status, patient/customer satisfaction and reimbursement.
• Standardize services, processes, resources, and practice to improve efficiency.
• Provide supervision including planning, coordinating, and controlling the work and procedures; provide advice/consultation to staff regarding problems.
• Adjust work schedules or project priorities to meet emergencies or changing conditions.
• Participate on departmental and/or interdepartmental committees to address problems and facilitate information exchange about programs, problems, etc.
• Provide information to others (oral or written) to explain/clarify problems, issues or requests.
• Participate in periodic management meetings to keep top management informed of department problems and concerns.
• Analyze and evaluate ongoing department programs to identify areas where adjustments/improvements are needed.
• Develop staffing plans to ensure developmental objectives are being met.
• Define and achieve financial targets in support of business goals of the institution.
• Prepare an annual operating budget for a unit or department, including direct labor, material and supplies, services, equipment maintenance and replacement.
• Present and justify a proposed budget (operating and capital expenditure) to a management review committee.
• Evaluate organizational functions and structures to best determine the allocation and utilization of resources.
• Analyze and evaluate budget variance to determine cause.
• Prepare justification or develop alternatives for cost containment/reduction.
• Project future budgets based upon analysis of current operations.
• Create and exceed service standards utilizing key service dimension and from knowledge of patient/customer expectations and best practice.
• Establish service standards for the department and determine if service standards are compatible with financial targets.
• Ensure that the service standards are met or exceeded by utilizing customer satisfaction, best practices and market information to improve customer service and satisfaction.
• Create an organizational culture (both within and across departments) that provides a safe, satisfying and enriching environment for employees and provides a qualified, competent staff to meet patient needs.
• Provide leadership to promulgate the mission and the values of the institution to the department.
• Model behavior consistent with the mission, vision, and values of the enterprise through leading, coordinating projects, innovation, initiating improvement, and developing new programs.
• Demonstrate a leadership style that is facilitative and collaborative.
• Communicate within and across departments to maximize effectiveness, efficiently and information sharing.
• Ensure all Human Resource and VUMC policies and procedures are followed according to standards.
• Define the qualifications and performance expectations for all staff positions through the Performance Development system, including department specific job descriptions, measurable performance standards.
• Create an environment that encourages and supports self-development and learning for all staff through regular feedback, by assuring the development of staff through orientation, training programs, work experiences and assessing competencies by meeting the performance expectations stated in his or her job description in a timely manner (normally annually).
• Identify, establish and evaluate quality assurance standards, programs, and procedures within department.
• Establish and evaluate standards of performance to ensure safe, effective, and efficient operation of the department.
• Ensure that standards are met within area of responsibility to assure clinical enterprise accreditation/licensure.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field.
• 7 years of relevant work experience in a leadership role.
• Strong understanding of healthcare operations and purchasing processes.
• Proven ability to develop and implement departmental goals and objectives.
• Experience in budget preparation and financial management.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to facilitate collaboration across departments.
• Ability to analyze complex information and make data-driven decisions.
• Demonstrated leadership skills with a focus on team development and performance management.

Nice-to-haves

• Master's degree in healthcare administration or related field.
• Experience in a large healthcare system or academic medical center.
• Familiarity with quality assurance standards and accreditation processes.
• Knowledge of healthcare regulations and compliance requirements.

Benefits

• Comprehensive health insurance coverage.
• Retirement savings plan with employer matching.
• Tuition reimbursement for further education.
• Paid time off and holidays.
• Professional development opportunities.