Acute Care Medical Director

SEARHC is a non-profit health consortium which serves the health interests of the residents of Southeast Alaska. We see our employees as our strongest assets. It is our priority to further their development and our organization by aiding in their professional advancement.

Working at SEARHC is more than a job, it’s a fulfilling career. We offer generous benefits, including retirement, paid time off, paid parental leave, health insurance, dental, and vision benefits, life insurance and long and short-term disability, and more.

Medical Director – Emergency Medicine & Hospitalist - SEARHC

Join SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC)- a distinguished non-profit health consortium dedicated to providing comprehensive healthcare services to the residents of beautiful Southeast Alaska. SEARHC is seeking a Medical Director of Acute Care to lead clinical operations at Wrangell Medical Center, a critical access hospital in Southeast Alaska. This role blends clinical practice and leadership, offering the opportunity to shape care delivery in a close-knit, resourceful rural community.

This position includes Emergency Medicine and observationalist/hospitalist responsibilities, with the ability to directly influence quality, patient safety, provider engagement, and operational excellence across the hospital.

Why Choose SEARHC & Wrangell Medical Center?

• Leadership impact: Serve as the key clinical leader guiding quality, safety, and provider engagement.

• Autonomy and influence: Partner closely with hospital administration and executive leadership.

• Meaningful patient care: Low volumes allow for deeper patient interaction and high-quality care.

• Collaborative rural environment: Strong teamwork across a small, mission-driven clinical team.

• Flexible scheduling: 1-week rotations with ability to stack shifts for extended time off.

• Mission-driven organization: Non-profit health consortium serving communities throughout Southeast Alaska.

Compensation & Benefits:

• Salary Range 0.5 - 0.75 FTE: $194,400 - $302,400 annual salary and an additional leadership stipend.

• Financial Incentives 0.75 FTE: Geographical differential stipend of $26,500, $26,250 Sign-on bonus and $18,750 relocation assistance available.

• Healthcare benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, vision coverage with flexible spending options (FSAs).

• Life insurance and wellness: Basic life insurance, Short & Long Term Disability, Accident - Critical Illness – Hospital Insurances, Identity & Fraud Protection, Legal Insurance, and Pet Insurance.

• Professional development 0.75 FTE: $4,500 in pre-tax annual CME allowance.

• Retirement planning: 401k plan with up to 5% employer match beginning on your date of hire, Roth and 457b plans.

Schedule and Work-Life Balance:

• Schedule: Flexible shift-based model with one-week blocks, covering days, and evenings.

• Shift Obligation: 0.5 FTE: 9 shifts monthly & 0.75 FTE 14 shifts monthly

  • Day shift: 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM

  • Evening shift: 4:00 PM – 12:00 AM

• Call structure: 7 calls monthly from 12:00 AM – 8:00 AM (not required to be onsite).

• Call Back Rate: $270 per hour

Practice Details: The Medical Director is responsible for the quality and safety of care across inpatient, emergency, and long-term care services. This role combines administrative leadership with hands-on clinical care in both the ED and inpatient setting.

• Critical Access Hospital Facilities: 

  • 4-bed Emergency Department

  • 8-bed inpatient unit

  • 18-bed long-term care unit

  • Level IV Trauma Center and Pediatric Emergency Ready facility

  • Onsite imaging (CT, X-ray, ultrasound, mammography, Dexa) and lab services

  • Physical rehab services (PT, OT, SLP) and pharmacy support

• Average daily volumes: With Meditech EMR, Dragon, and DAX CoPilot

  • ED census: ~3 patients

  • Inpatient census: ~1 patient

  • Rehab census: ~3 patients

• Support Staff:

  • 1 MD/APP per shift covering ED and inpatient.

  • 3 RNs per shift (ED, Med-Surg, LTC).

  • Access to urgent and specialty care via telemedicine or transfer to SEARHC facilities.

Leadership Responsibilities:

• Lead hospital-based physicians and APPs

• Oversee recruitment, onboarding, and provider evaluations

• Ensure compliance with accreditation standards (DNV, HRSA)

• Drive quality improvement initiatives and clinical performance metrics

• Serve as liaison between medical staff and SEARHC leadership

• Support utilization review, case management, infection control, and risk management

• Promote provider engagement, wellness, and team culture

Qualifications:

• Minimum 5 years of leadership experience within a hospital or health system preferred.

• MD or DO from an accredited program.

• Board-certified or board-eligible in:

  • Family Medicine, Internal Medicine/Pediatrics, or Emergency Medicine.

• Active Alaska medical license (or ability to obtain).

• Required certifications: Required certifications: ACLS, ALSO, ATLS, BLS, NRP, and PALS

• Strong track record in quality improvement and evidence-based practice.

What Makes This Opportunity Unique?

• Rare opportunity to lead and practice in a rural critical access hospital

• Flexible FTE and scheduling structure

• Ability to build and shape clinical programs and provider culture

• Strong balance of clinical care, leadership, and lifestyle

What Our Physicians Say:

“SEARHC shares in our vision of creating a medical practice that treats every patient with dignity and optimum care. We are eager to combine the strengths of our respective organizations and further enhance the services we can offer the Juneau community and greater southeast region. Our shared commitment to recruiting and retaining highly trained and compassionate medical professionals, while bringing increasingly advanced technologies and innovations to Juneau, helps us deliver on that vision.”

- Catherine Peimann, M.D.

Community and Lifestyle:

• Location: Wrangell Island is a community of approximately 1,800 residents with a welcoming, family-friendly atmosphere. Surrounded by world-class outdoor recreation, including fishing, hiking, boating, and wildlife viewing.

• Education: Wrangell is served by a small, community-centered public school system with three schools (elementary, middle, and high school) educating roughly 260–270 students, offering small class sizes and strong access to individualized learning, extracurriculars, and early college credit opportunities.

• Transportation: Accessible by daily commercial flights and ferry system.

Working at SEARHC is more than a job—it’s the opportunity to build a fulfilling and rewarding career and to learn more please reach out to Provider Recruiter, Lyndse Clark: LClark@searhc.org or (907)463-7531.

Key Essential Functions and Accountabilities of the Job

• Ensure the delivery of inpatient medical care services at Wrangel Medical Center
• Lead the medical staff and midlevel providers at WMC. Oversees recruiting and hiring (permanent physicians/midlevel providers and intermittent/locums as needed), annual evaluations, collaborative physician agreements for physician assistants, mentoring, corrective action if needed and quality review. Collaborate with the administrative staff, to ensure all medical staff providers are credentialed at SEARHC, and provider enrollment is completed. Oversee that the provider and call schedule is done by the hospital leader at each site.
• Serve as Physician Advisor when needed to the consortium care coordination department and participate in the Utilization Review Committee. Work with the UR Physician advisor (contractor).
• Continually assesses barriers, hindrances, waste, and obstacles that prevent and discourage effective and smooth patient flow. Identify and implement opportunities, strategies, corrective actions, and interventions that improve efficient patient flow with balanced provider experience.
• Embraces the reality of constant industry change and serves as a champion and change agent to promote clinical quality improvement, optimization of services, improved access to care, excellent customer service, and value to the health system.
• Assists with development of quality measures and leads efforts to improve clinical measures of performance for DNV, HRSA, SEARHC organizational strategic plan initiatives, etc. Examples of quality measures include access to care, continuity of care, population health, UDS measures, and patient satisfaction. Assists with DNV and HRSA Accreditation requirements and maintains standards for ongoing clinical compliance.
• Works with the Chief Information Officer and Chief Medical Officer to continually improve the medical staff’s efficient ease of use of the electronic health records.
• Assists to update medical provider recruitment plans and participates in medical provider recruitment and interviewing.
• Monitors resource use and supports the development and implementation of financially responsible standards for equipment, supplies, procedures, and technology utilization. Provides recommendations on medical staff requested staffing, capital, and non-payroll expense related budget items with operational dyad partner/hospital adminstrator
• Develops and implements communication strategies that align, build trust, motivate, inform, promote information exchange, and enhance teamwork between medical providers and the health system executive leadership team.
• Serve as the chief liaison between SEARHC Senior Leadership Team and the WMC Inpatient medical staff and midlevel providers.
• Facilitate communication between the Hospital Leadership Teams, SEARHC leadership and the organized medical staff leadership.
• Conduct Focused Professional Practice Evaluation/Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation (FPPE/OPPE) peer review/annual assessments.
• Provide clinical oversight of WMC Case Management, Infection Control, and Risk Management.
• Develop and implement initiatives, programs, and plans to achieve clinical, operating, and financial performance indicators, in collaboration with SEARHC Leadership Team and the medical staff.
• Participate as a key member of the SEARHC Hospital Leadership Teams ensuring that Provider issues and opportunities are addressed.
• Promote initiatives to enhance provider engagement and development, addressing issues and barriers to optimal service. Act to improve employee engagement.
• Assure medical staff compliance with medical staff bylaws, rules and regulations, and policies and procedures.
• Work closely with SEARHC Hospital Leadership as a support and resource and ensure high level quality care across the continuum. Identify opportunities to enhance recruiting and onboarding of providers.
• Function as health care advocate for consumers, including visiting hospitalized consumers and work with community physicians on both consumer health issues and policy issues.
• Establish and promote positive working relationships with all Medical Staff, ensuring that the mission and values of SEARHC are communicated, understood, and practiced among physicians and develop and enhance relationships with organizations and the community to expand the effectiveness of the delivery system.
• Develop and maintain a service-oriented and quality-focused culture within the hospital and implement programs to continually enhance service, quality, and satisfaction.
• Serve as Long Term Care Medical Director for WMC or delegate the duty to one of your supervised physicians and work with local physicians who manage patients at the LTCs to meet national accreditation standards.
• Serve as Trauma Director for WMC or delegate duty to one of your supervised physicians and work shifts at WMC to stay in compliance with trauma accreditation.

Other Functions

• Be a visionary, strategic physician executive with a background of clinical practice and passion for quality of care.
• Be prepared to help develop and open new critical access hospitals (CAH) in rural communities.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• The WMC Medical Director leads the Hospital Physicians and has the following direct reports: Hospital based physicians, and APPs.

Education, Certifications, and Licenses Required

• Current unrestricted license to practice medicine in the State of Alaska
• Ongoing current certification for clinical practice (e.g.,v BLS, PALS, ACLS as required by practice location)
• APCA-C, HCQM or CPHYADV certification preferred.  Applicants without a physician advisor certification may be asked to obtain certification upon employment over an agreed to timeline.

Experience Required

• Minimum of five years prior experience and success leading the medical staff function within a hospital/health system to drive results.
• A record of implementing evidence-based practice within an integrated delivery system.

Knowledge of

• Excellent leadership, organizational and critical thinking skills.
• Human resources management concepts.
• Quality improvement.
•  DNV (Det Norske Veritas) and CMS accreditation standards, EMTALA, and HIPAA, HRSA
• Health care risk management principles.
• Medical ethics and medical malpractice principles.

Skills in

• Strong leadership skills with proven ability to develop, engage, challenge and mentor others.
• Skilled in sound principles of interactive planning, participatory management, and influence management.
• Outstanding oral and written communication skills (including active listening); excellent presentation and facilitation skills; and has a direct and open style.
• DNV (Det Norske Veritas) and ISO 9001 accreditation for Quality Management Systems.

Ability to

• Ability to remain flexible and open-minded to change and new ways providing effective and efficient health care services.
• Express ideas clearly through oral and written communication skills.
• Analyze complex situations efficiently and problem solve.
• Effectively implement clinical program strategies.
• Ability to communicates in an open, transparent, inspiring, helpful, supportive, cooperative, and collaborative manner. Care Personally and Act Directly.
• Ability to effectively challenge the status quo in a manner that encourages and motivates others to make change and improve the delivery of care.
• Ability to effectively balance multiple, and sometimes competing perspectives and objectives.
• Maintain the utmost confidentiality with sensitive organizational business and healthcare information.
• Think innovatively and strategically and clearly communicates the vision and direction.
• Work collaboratively internally and externally.
• Solve problems timely and execute on initiatives.
• Maintains knowledge of medical quality assurance, quality improvement and risk management
• Comfortable with regular business travel to SEARHC communities or other leadership forums
• Work an occasional hospital shift next to hospital colleagues to keep an understanding of daily workflows and challenges.

Computer Skills

• Proficient in Microsoft Office Products including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Other Qualifications

• Express ideas clearly through oral
• and written communication skills.
• Analyze complex situations.
• efficiently and problem solve.
• Effectively implement clinical.
• program strategies.

Travel Required

• Must be able to travel 30% of the time.
• Travel is by jet, small aircraft, or ferry.

Safety and Risk Management Responsibilities

• Employees are responsible for complying with safe work rules; reporting all accidents and injuries immediately; cooperating in all accident and injury investigations; reporting defective equipment and unsafe conditions.

Physical Demands

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to finger, handle or feel and reach with hands and arms.
• The employee may be required to climb or balance; stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl. The employee must lift and/or move 50 lbs.

Work Environment

• The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.

Required Certifications:

If you like wild growth and working with happy, enthusiastic over-achievers, you'll enjoy your career with us!