Senior Vice President Chief Nursing Executive

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Overview

Senior Vice President, Chief Nursing Executive 

Location: Springfield, IL

Memorial Health is seeking a visionary leader to serve as our next Senior Vice President, Chief Nursing Executive (SVP, CNE), a transformative executive role with enterprise wide impact across nursing practice and ambulatory operations.

Reporting directly to the President & CEO, the SVP, CNE will help shape the future of care delivery across the Memorial Health system by advancing clinical excellence, elevating the patient and caregiver experience, and leading innovative models of care that improve lives across the communities we serve.

This is more than a nursing leadership role. It is an opportunity to influence the future of healthcare delivery at one of the region’s leading health systems.

About the Opportunity

As the senior executive leader for nursing, the SVP, CNE sets the vision for professional nursing practice, workforce strategy, clinical education, and systemwide nursing excellence across all sites of care. This leader will champion a culture where:

• Nurses are empowered and supported
• Patients feel safe, respected, and cared for
• Clinical teams thrive through collaboration and innovation
• Evidence-based practice drives exceptional outcomes

In addition, the SVP, CNE provides executive oversight for Memorial Health’s ambulatory operations, including primary care, specialty care, and urgent care services. This leader will play a critical role in reimagining how care is accessed and experienced throughout the community by aligning operational performance, clinical quality, and compassionate care delivery.

Qualifications

Education:

• Master’s degree in Nursing or related field; Doctorate preferred.

Licensure/Certification/Registry:

• Licensed RN in the State of Illinois required.

Experience:

• 10+ years of progressive nursing leadership in a complex, multi‑hospital health system.
• Demonstrated success leading system-wide clinical, operational, and workforce initiatives.
• Experience with Magnet, regulatory readiness, and large-scale practice transformation.

Other Knowledge/Skills/Abilities:

• Strategic Acumen: Demonstrates deep expertise in shaping enterprise nursing strategy and aligning clinical priorities with organizational goals, population health needs, and community well‑ Champions innovation and best practices in care delivery, clinical transformation, and system integration.
• Clinical Operations & Standards: Possesses comprehensive knowledge of evidence‑based practice, nursing protocols, interdisciplinary care delivery models, and standards of care across diverse settings. Expert understanding of regulatory and accreditation requirements influencing nursing practice, including CMS, Joint Commission, and Magnet frameworks.
• Financial Acumen: Holds strong healthcare financial management expertise to align nursing operations with system financial performance. Able to translate clinical strategy into sustainable economic outcomes, leveraging productivity, resource optimization, and value‑based care principles.
• Nursing Relations and Clinical Integration: Skilled in fostering collaborative, trusting partnerships with medical staff, system executives, and clinical leaders. Aligns nursing strategy with enterprise clinical and operational priorities, promoting true interdisciplinary integration across hospitals and care settings.
• Quality Improvement: Uses analytics, benchmarking, and systemwide dashboards to identify quality and safety gaps and drive continuous improvement. Demonstrates mastery of improvement methodologies (Lean, Six Sigma, HRO) to elevate outcomes, reliability, and patient experience across the enterprise.
• Community Advocacy: Acts as a champion for addressing health disparities through partnerships with community organizations. Promotes equitable care delivery, ensuring nursing practice supports cultural humility, access, and improved health outcomes for underserved populations.
• Driving Change: Acts as a champion for system-wide transformation initiatives with clinical staff. Addresses and overcomes resistance, transparently communicates reasons for change, and fosters adoption of clinical transformation efforts.
• Executive Healthcare Leadership: Exhibits strong executive presence and the ability to build, inspire, and align high‑performing nursing leadership teams. Guides the development of systemwide clinical programs, expansion of services, and workforce strategies that ensure the right talent, in the right roles, at the right time to meet patient care demands.

Responsibilities

• Shapes a shared vision and strategy for nursing practice across the system, ensuring that standards of care, scope of practice, and clinical competencies support safe, evidence-based, and compassionate care across all nursing settings, not limited to inpatient care. Cultivates strong professional governance structures that give nurses a meaningful voice in decisions and foster a connected, empowered nursing community.

• Provides enterprise-wide operational oversight of all ambulatory clinics, ensuring efficient day-to-day operations, access, throughput, and consistent standards of care across all locations.

• Leads enterprise nursing and ambulatory outcomes across quality, safety, patient experience, and cost by ensuring measurable and continuous performance improvement. Establishes and governs systemwide nursing and ambulatory performance metrics, dashboards, and measurement standards. Partners with system executives to advance clinical transformation, care standardization, and operational excellence initiatives.

• Holds dotted-line relationships with hospital Chief Nursing Officers (CNOs), providing enterprise-level strategic guidance and unifying nursing practices, standards and care delivery across the enterprise. Builds and develops a high-performing nursing leadership community, aligning priorities, accountability, and execution across sites.  Establishes clear decision rights and escalation pathways to rapidly address cross-site variation, risk, and workforce challenges.

• Partners closely with SVP, Chief Clinical Officer and SVP, Chief Operating Officer to align ambulatory operations, footprint and market growth with Memorial Health’s mission and strategic plan.

• Leads the strategy and operating model for nursing and allied health education, ensuring alignment with workforce needs, regulatory requirements, and academic partnerships. Oversees the development, delivery, and evaluation of clinical education programs across the health system.

• Provides executive leadership for enterprise care transition functions—such as length‑of‑stay optimization, discharge workflows, transfer center operations, and bed placement/patient flow—ensuring coordinated and standardized processes that enhance throughput and continuity of care. Leads nursing strategy and ambulatory clinical operations across the full continuum (acute, ambulatory, post-acute, home-based, virtual, and population health) to ensure consistent care models and smooth transitions.  Partners with clinical and operational leaders to reduce avoidable variation and readmissions through standardized transition processes and care coordination.

• Accountable for enterprise nursing financial performance, including labor expense management, nursing productivity standards, staffing efficiency, and resource optimization. Leads a comprehensive nursing workforce strategy across the system, including contract labor strategy, workforce planning, and return‑on‑investment evaluation. Partners with CFO/COO leaders to translate clinical strategy into sustainable economic outcomes using value‑based care principles and workforce ROI measurement. Leads capital and resource prioritization related to nursing practice environments, workforce support, education infrastructure, and care delivery optimization.

• Advocates for technology that truly supports caregivers, partnering with clinical informatics and IT leaders to align digital tools with real-world nursing practice. Guides and sponsors optimization of the EHR, documentation, and frontline technologies to reduce burden, improve accuracy, and create a more supportive clinician experience.

• Builds a sustainable, engaged, and future-ready nursing workforce, shaping strategies for recruitment, retention, staffing models, and career pathways. Prioritizes workforce well-being, professional growth, and inclusive leadership to ensure nurses feel valued, supported, and inspired to stay and grow within the organization.

• Ensures compliance with all applicable regulatory and accreditation requirements, including the State Nurse Practice Act, CMS Conditions of Participation, Joint Commission standards, and Magnet criteria and leads systemwide preparation for regulatory surveys.

• Serves as a strategic partner to the CCO, COO, CHRO, CIO, CFO, and CSO to advance system performance, operational integration, and clinical transformation. Represents nursing at the enterprise leadership table, with community partners and academic institutions. Serves as the principal nursing and ambulatory operations advisor to the Board and/or Board Quality Committee; provides regular updates on nursing quality, safety, workforce risks, practice environment performance, and strategic initiatives.

Embodies the Memorial Health System Performance Excellence Standards of Safety, Courtesy, Quality, and Efficiency that support the mission, vision, and values:

• SAFETY: Prevent Harm - I put safety first in everything I do.  I take action to ensure the safety of others.
• COURTESY: Serve Others - I treat others with dignity and respect.  I project a professional image and positive attitude.
• QUALITY: Improve Outcomes - I continually advance my knowledge, skills and performance.  I work with others to achieve superior results.
• EFFICIENCY: Reduce Waste - I use time and resources wisely.  I prevent defects and delays.