Bryant

University of Arkansas•Benton, AR

3d•Onsite

About The Position

The Chief Administrative Officer / Hospital Administrator is the senior administrative executive accountable for the safe, compliant, reliable, financially sustainable, and strategically aligned performance of the community hospital within the UAMS academic medical center enterprise [UAMS Health Benton/Bryant]. The CAO serves as the designated Hospital Administrator for the facility, subject to required governing-body appointment and institutional authority and is accountable for integrating the work required to operate a 24/7 hospital. The role operates in a highly matrixed environment in which nursing, physicians, academic departments, service lines, quality, finance, HR, IT, revenue cycle, supply chain, pharmacy, facilities and other functions may report through enterprise structures. The CAO is therefore expected to build influence without relying on hierarchy; establish shared goals and operating priorities; convene the right leaders; make transparent tradeoffs; and escalate unresolved risk or resource conflicts. Functional reporting relationships do not diminish the CAO’s accountability for identifying and resolving risks to patient care, regulatory compliance, hospital performance, workforce reliability, or financial results. The CAO partners with the Health System CEO, enterprise/main-campus administrative leadership, Site CMO, Site CNO, medical staff leaders, department chairs and service-line executives to translate enterprise strategy into disciplined local execution. Performance is evaluated on hospital outcomes and sustained improvement—not solely on project completion or coordination activity.

Requirements

Master’s degree in healthcare administration (MHA), business administration (MBA), public health (MPH), health services administration or a closely related discipline required.
An equivalent advanced professional degree may be considered when paired with substantial executive hospital operating experience.
Minimum 10 years of progressive healthcare leadership experience, including meaningful acute-care hospital operations responsibility; at least 5 years in a senior leadership role with broad accountability across multiple hospital functions, a major clinical/operating portfolio, or an enterprise operating platform.
Must demonstrate direct ownership of measurable quality, operational and financial outcomes and successful leadership through shared/dotted-line relationships.
Executive-level knowledge of acute-care hospital operations, patient flow/capacity management, financial management and labor productivity; working knowledge of hospital licensure/accreditation, CMS Conditions of Participation, patient safety, emergency preparedness and regulatory survey readiness; ability to build influence and shared accountability in a highly matrixed academic environment; strong physician and nursing partnership skills; data literacy, benchmarking and performance-improvement capability; demonstrated change leadership; strong judgment, negotiation, conflict resolution and executive communication; ability to prioritize under ambiguity, surface risk early and drive issues to closure; working fluency with digital health, automation, analytics and responsible innovation.
Proof of legal authority to work in the United States on the first day of employment.

Nice To Haves

Graduate preparation in healthcare administration/business from an accredited program; additional executive education in strategy, finance, innovation, quality or health-system leadership.
FACHE or comparable healthcare executive certification preferred.
Lean/Six Sigma, operational excellence, change-management or project-management training preferred.
Leadership experience in an academic medical center, teaching hospital, public/state-operated health system, integrated delivery system or comparably complex matrixed organization.
Experience opening, acquiring, integrating, stabilizing or materially redesigning a hospital/site is strongly preferred.
Experience leading service growth, digital transformation or major operational redesign is also preferred.
Demonstrated success with physician/faculty relationships, nursing partnership, enterprise service lines, complex capital/resource allocation, strategic growth, advanced analytics, automation/digital workflows and responsible AI-enabled operational tools.

Responsibilities

Own the aggregate performance of the hospital across quality, safety, operations, finance, workforce, patient experience, growth, regulatory readiness and execution of enterprise priorities.
Create and maintain a site scorecard and management cadence that includes daily operating management, weekly cross-functional performance review, monthly executive accountability, and clear owners and closure dates for corrective actions.
Exercise convening authority across matrixed functions; establish immediate operating priorities within approved system policy; require timely action plans when performance is off target; and escalate unresolved resource, performance or accountability conflicts to Health System leadership.
Provide concise, transparent visibility to executive and governing leadership on hospital performance, material risk, decisions required and corrective actions.
Be accountable for reliable 24/7 hospital operations, including emergency department flow, admission and bed placement, transfer acceptance, inpatient progression, discharge, procedural throughput, diagnostic/ancillary responsiveness and major service disruptions.
Integrate nursing, physicians, hospital medicine, emergency medicine, procedural areas, imaging, laboratory, pharmacy, respiratory therapy, rehabilitation, EVS, transport, facilities, security and other support functions around a common daily operating plan.
Use demand/capacity data, benchmarking and root-cause analysis to identify bottlenecks, redesign workflows, establish standard work and sustain improvement rather than relying on episodic escalation.
Balance local site efficiency with enterprise capacity, referral, transfer and service-line priorities.
Share executive accountability with the CMO, CNO and Quality leadership for clinical quality, patient safety, infection prevention, mortality, readmissions, serious safety events, patient complaints and sustained corrective action.
Serve as the senior administrative owner for hospital licensure and accreditation readiness, including applicable Arkansas hospital requirements, CMS Conditions of Participation, Joint Commission standards and governing-body obligations.
Ensure required hospital designations, committees, policies, survey responses and regulated programs are current and operationalized.
Ensure qualified leaders are appropriately designated for professional or technical responsibilities such as pharmacy, infection prevention, laboratory/CLIA, controlled-substance systems/DEA, radiation safety and medical staff functions; the CAO does not substitute for duties that must be held by licensed or formally designated professionals.
Provide executive oversight of emergency preparedness, business continuity and hospital incident command; ensure plans, communication systems, drills/exercises, after-action reviews and remediation are tested and ready for activation.
Develop and manage the hospital operating budget and performance plan in partnership with enterprise Finance, with accountability for controllable drivers of hospital financial performance.
Actively manage labor productivity, staffing efficiency, premium labor, supplies, purchased services, contract performance, revenue capture/revenue leakage and other material operating variances; initiate corrective action early rather than relying on retrospective variance explanation.
Understand site and service-line economics sufficiently to make resource tradeoffs and recommend investments based on quality, access, strategic value, financial return and reinvestment capacity.
Develop and prioritize the site capital plan, including clinical equipment, infrastructure, technology, facilities and lifecycle replacement needs, and ensure approved projects are executed with disciplined scope, schedule and budget management.
Build and lead a high-performing site leadership team with explicit accountabilities, succession plans and expectations for cross-functional problem solving.
Partner with Nursing, HR, physician leadership and enterprise functional executives on workforce planning, recruitment, retention, labor deployment, engagement, leadership development and performance management.
Participate meaningfully in selection and performance evaluation of key matrixed leaders whose work materially affects the hospital, consistent with enterprise functional governance.
Create a culture in which safety and operational concerns are escalated early, leaders address underperformance directly, decisions are transparent and accountability is not avoided because a function reports elsewhere.
Translate Health System, academic department and service-line strategy into executable site plans with defined milestones, resources, readiness criteria and measurable outcomes.
Partner on physician recruitment, program development, call coverage, access, referral and transfer capture, procedural capacity and market growth while ensuring new services do not outpace clinical, nursing, ancillary, regulatory, technology, supply or facility readiness.
Champion disciplined innovation that measurably improves access, quality, patient experience, workforce efficiency or cost.
Use analytics, automation, digital workflows, virtual-care models and responsibly governed AI-enabled tools where they solve a defined operating problem.
Ensure the community hospital functions as part of the AMC enterprise—not as an isolated facility—by creating effective pathways for referrals, transfers, service-line support, faculty participation, learners and shared resources.
Be accountable for site-level patient experience, complaints/grievances trends, service recovery and the operational systems that shape patient and family experience.
Represent the hospital appropriately with referring providers, community leaders, partners and other stakeholders within Health System strategy.
Use patient feedback, community needs and market intelligence to inform operating priorities and redesign recurring experience failures.
Other duties as assigned.