The Medical Director, Medication Systems is a co-leadership position that shares responsibility with the Director, Pharmacy Operations and the Director, Medication Safety for the planning, delivery, and oversight of high quality medication services.  In partnership with the Directors, the Medical Director works proactively with stakeholders (including patients) to ensure continuous quality improvement of service delivery. This position directly reports to the Executive Medical Director, Medication Systems & Medical Informatics, through to the Vice President, Medicine. 

Main responsibilities of this position:

1. Leadership: Co-leads, with the Director, Pharmacy Operations and the Director, Medication Safety, the programs and services intrinsic to both portfolios.  Oversees activities to ensure program service delivery is efficient, effective and integrated across Island Health sites. Links with appropriate Medical Staff Leaders to ensure adequate involvement of medical staff in all matters of medical therapeutics, stewardship and safety.  
2. Operations & Quality: Establishes structures and processes to engage physicians and other members of the medical staff in continuous quality improvement of service delivery.  Ensures that the Island Health medical staff voice is reflected in discussions on appropriate therapeutics in provincial forums, such as at the BC Health Authorities Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee (BCPT).  Ensures appropriate investigation and resolution of program-related Patient Safety Learning System events and Patient Care Quality Office reported complaints.  Monitors program budget and key performance indicators jointly with their Director partners; makes course corrections when necessary. 
3. Change Management: Jointly develops and implements change management plans to engage and support physicians and staff through change.
4. Informatics: Oversees activities that advance technology and data use to improve service delivery, medication safety and medication management (including medication stewardship and utilization).    Collaborates with other informatics and analytics team members to advance changes in the Electronic Health Record (EHR) to support continual quality improvement.  
5. Planning: In partnership with their Director colleagues, provides advice to the ED and EMD to inform strategic initiatives.  Assesses, monitors and anticipates program resource needs and works with staff and administrative leaders to prioritize needs against available resources.

Position-Specific Deliverables

1. Co-Chair, with the Directors, the Medication Safety & Therapeutics Quality Committee
2. Serves as a member of the Health Authority Medical Advisory Committee (HAMAC) and relevant subcommittees where medication systems matters, inclusive but not limited to pharmacy, medication safety, medication quality, or utilization.  Acts as the link between HAMAC and provincial committees such as BCPT. 
3. Engage in development of analytic tools for clinicians to explore therapeutic utilization and medication stewardship, starting with antimicrobial use.
4. Develop, in collaboration with pharmacy clinical services, a practice model of collaborative practise for prescribers and clinical pharmacists, and test the model.
5. In partnership with the Medical Informatics team, supports physician involvement and engagement in the implementation of best practices including, but not limited to, Best Possible Medication History (BPMH), Medication Reconciliation, Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE) and Orders Management, Order Set Adoption, and the Closed Loop Medication System (CLMS).
6. Development and implementation of a medication utilization strategy that targets identified medications to reduce utilization congruent with best practice standards, therefore lowering expenditures while maintaining care quality.