Organizational overview

IWS Family Health (IWS) is a more than 100-year-old organization providing healthcare services, education, and support to children and families in Chicago. Our Logan Square location offers full-service care including pediatrics, family health, behavioral health, dental, and more. Our new pediatric site in Dunning is dedicated to specialized care for children. Our third location will soon open in Belmont Cragin. 

IWS Family Health’s mission is to help children and families grow healthy, strong, and confident by providing trusted, high-quality, coordinated healthcare. At IWS, we envision a community where every child and family thrives with healthy bodies and minds.

We recognize that health is not one-dimensional. It’s complex. It’s personal. It involves the body, the mind, the community, and often, social and economic realities that cannot be ignored. That’s why we’ve embraced an integrated approach that meets children and families where they are—one that blends complementary healthcare services into a coordinated, person-centered model of care for better outcomes.

For more information, please visit: https://iwsfamilyhealth.org/ 

Position summary

IWS is seeking a transformational leader, who will integrate and direct our holistic care model. The IWS Chief Medical Officer (CMO) serves as a key member of the senior leadership team, responsible for advancing the IWS mission, vision, and strategy. This position is responsible for designing, delivering, and continuously improving a holistic program of high-quality medical care that is responsive to the evolving health needs of our patient population and community. We estimate that this role will be 75% administrative and 25% clinical.

Lead the delivery of primary health care 

• Ensure the delivery of high-quality primary health care that addresses unmet community need for holistic care.
• Lead a program that integrates primary care with behavioral health, dental care, and developmental and social services that attends to social and environmental factors affecting health and child development.
• Ensure that the IWS medical care plan and its implementation are fully compliant with the federal HRSA requirements to operate as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) Look Alike.

Lead the primary care team

• Recruit, supervise, ensure quality, and evaluate our primary care medical providers, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and midwives as well as our dental, behavioral health, and other clinical teams.     
• Ensure that effective systems are in place for medical provider credentialing and privileging as well as for insurance contracting and provider enrollment.
• Support the professional development of the primary care team and monitor and promote provider satisfaction.
• Promote effective, timely and accurate use of electronic medical record and other information systems to ensure high quality documentation. 
• Develop and implement practice management policies and standards for the delivery of primary care at IWS; develop and oversee expectations for practice management that fosters high quality care, consistent productivity, innovation, and clinical team collaboration.
• Support methods to ensure patient access to care and removal of access barriers such as language and transportation. 
• Ensure consistent provider availability in compliance with federal standards for FQHC Look Alikes.
• Ensure that a mechanism is in place for patients to make after-hours contact with the primary care team.
• Plan for patient access across a continuum of care, including hospital, subspecialty, imaging, pharmacy, and emergency care, and develop relationships to facilitate scheduling, admissions and records transfer as needed.
• Develop patient transfer and emergency policies and ensure their proper implementation.
• Ensure the implementation of continuous quality improvement, accreditation, and clinical compliance with external funding and regulatory entities.
• Ensure compliance with collaborative agreements. 
• Provide medical guidance to other clinical staff including psychologists, social workers, nurses, care managers, medical assistants, contracting pharmacists, and other care givers across the organization.
• Provide limited direct patient care.

Serve as a strategic leader

• In collaboration with the senior leadership team, plan and carry out the mission, vision and strategic aims of the organization; in particular working side-by-side with the COO and serving as a thought-partner to the CEO and other senior leaders.     
• Participate in board meetings to support the board’s role in ensuring that IWS provides a high-quality medical care plan and strategies to serve patient and community needs for holistic primary care.
• As a senior leadership team member, lead the planning and budgeting for revenue generation and expense management associated with delivery of high quality primary medical care in the context of the entire IWS program.
• Develop approaches to practice management that respect both the limitations and opportunities associated with being an FQHC Look Alike and participating in value based care arrangements.
• Serve as a strategic leader to address medical aspects of program development, service expansion, partnerships, and responses to unmet patient and community needs.
• Serve as a strategic leader to advise on medical and population health approaches under consideration, including value-based care and specialized programming for underserved populations.

• Establish liaison with hospitals, insurers and other health sector leaders to forge strategic partnerships to offer high quality, affordable, comprehensive approaches to health status improvement.

• Collaborate with other IWS leaders to generate and evaluate opportunities for sustainable strategic organizational growth. 

• Collaborate with the senior leadership team to monitor regulatory, public policy, and legislative issues (such as those concerning infectious disease and Medicaid) affecting our services and ability to improve population health, as well as to ensure an ongoing understanding of demographic and public health trends in our service areas. 
• As part of the senior leadership team, explore opportunities to develop data to quantify our impact, support decision-making, and influence policy.
• Help develop and consider partnership opportunities for teaching, program evaluation, and research.

Provide an external leadership presence

• Serve as a resource and spokesperson on medical issues affecting our patients and communities.  
• Develop and maintain partnerships as needed to ensure a continuum of high quality, affordable, accessible care for health center patients and residents of the service area. 
• Represent IWS as needed in activities of the National Association of Community Health Centers, Illinois Primary Health Care Association and other organizations, coalitions, and professional associations.      
• Provide medical guidance to other clinical staff including psychologists, nurses, care managers, medical assistants, contracting pharmacists, and other care givers across the organization.
• Monitor regulatory, public policy, and legislative issues affecting patient care and outcomes and serve as a partner with coalitions and medical trade associations on relevant challenges and opportunities impacting our primary and secondary service areas. 
• Collaborate with the Illinois Primary Health Care Association and other professional entities and coalitions that promote quality and responsiveness to patient and community needs.
• Serve as a resource and spokesperson in the community, and collaborate with other providers and associations, to provide expertise regarding leading approaches to integration of primary care, behavioral health and responses to homelessness and social determinants.

Education and experience:

• Graduate from an accredited medical school and completion of an accredited residency program in a medical specialty.
• Board certification in a field of specialty; agreement to maintain this certification during tenure of employment.
• Five years of post-residency clinical practice.
• Leadership, practice management and clinical compliance experience, and demonstrated ability to develop and lead quality assurance and continuous quality improvement practices.
• Experience in an FQHC or ambulatory setting addressing the needs of patients with chronic medical or behavioral health conditions.
• Senior leadership experience.

Preferred skills:

• Spanish language fluency or willingness to learn to become proficient in Spanish.
• Public health experience.
• Teaching and research experience.

Competencies and attributes:

• Ability to work within a leadership team to share in influencing the strategy, operations, financing and growth of a community-based organization.
• Interpersonal and communication skills including conflict resolution.
• Executive decision-making and problem-solving skills, with a strong sense of accountability.
• Sensitivity and respect for the diverse races, cultures, backgrounds, and experiences of individuals working and seeking care at IWS.
• Personal passion for the IWS mission and future direction.