Vice President, Medicine, Quality and Safety

IWK Health is an internationally recognized and respected academic health sciences centre located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, providing tertiary, secondary, and primary care for two million women, children, youth and families across the Maritime provinces. As outlined within IWK’s launch of the most recent 2024-2027 Strategy: “_The Road Forward_” they look forward to delivering on their priorities as a future-focused, responsive and agile organization and continue their journey on the path toward their purpose and aligned with their values, “to passionately pursue a healthy future with women, children, youth and families in all their diversity through excellence in care; research and innovation; and applied learning.”

**The Opportunity**

To help lead transformative change and advance clinical excellence across the health system, IWK Health is seeking a Vice President, Medicine, Quality and Safety to provide strategic leadership in medical governance, physician engagement, and quality care delivery.

As a member of the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) and reporting directly to the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), you will help shape the future of IWK Health by aligning medical strategy with broader provincial and national priorities. With executive oversight for a portfolio of approximately 400 staff (311 FTEs) and a $28.5 million operating budget, and indirect leadership to a community of nearly 700 physicians and affiliated medical staff, you will also support the organization’s mandate to deliver specialized care for women, children, youth, and gender-diverse individuals across Nova Scotia and the Maritime provinces while championing a culture of clinical excellence, safety, equity, and continuous improvement, ensuring alignment with the organization’s mission to provide world-class, patient
- and family-centred care.

Working closely with the ELT, you will help shape and implement IWK’s strategic and operational plans. As a key ambassador of the IWK, you will represent the organization on local and national platforms and collaborate with provincial partners to co-lead clinical services, quality and safety initiatives, and physician workforce planning. Additionally, you will oversee medical governance, enterprise risk, and health information services, ensuring system reliability and sustainability.

This is an opportunity to have a high-impact leadership role that blends clinical insight, strategic vision, and academic excellence to drive meaningful, long-term health system transformation.

**Key Areas of Responsibility**

As Vice President, you will have oversight and accountability for:

- Strategic leadership
- Physician engagement and resource planning
- Quality and patient safety
- Health system sustainability
- Health system, academic and community leadership and relationship management
- Operations and financial management

You are a respected, forward-thinking physician leader with a strong track record of progressive leadership experience in complex academic health sciences settings. Ideally, you bring clinical, research, and administrative expertise in a discipline aligned with IWK Health’s mission, along with academic appointments or strong ties to academic or university communities. Additionally, you are licensed to practice medicine in Nova Scotia or are eligible for licensure. Additional qualifications such as a Master’s degree in Health Administration or a related field would be considered an asset.

You are a strategic leader with proven experience overseeing clinical and non-clinical portfolios, including medicine, academic affairs, patient safety, and enterprise risk. Known for your integrity, governance expertise, and system-level impact, you have contributed meaningfully to strategic planning and served as a trusted voice on provincial and national committees. Politically astute with excellent communication skills and media-savvy, you navigate complex environments with diplomacy and clarity, aligning diverse partner groups around shared goals. With a solid foundation in financial management and research, you balance clinical quality with fiscal responsibility.

A visionary yet pragmatic champion of change, you have led major quality and system transformation initiatives, championed physician development, and fostered a culture of high performance and continuous improvement. Grounded in emotional intelligence and sound judgment, you lead with compassion, collaboration, and a steadfast commitment to care excellence.
- Promoting an anti-racist environment and calling out discrimination as we work and provide care is important to us. We are located in Mi’kma’ki, the unceded and ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq people. Working in Mi’kma’ki and providing care to those across Atlantic Canada is a shared privilege with the original inhabitants who have lived here for many thousands of years prior to colonization. There are 13 First Nation communities across Nova Scotia, and more th