Clinical Director - Emergency Department

Are you as passionate about stewardship of your department as you are about caring for patients?

Does excellence inspire you?

I’m Dr Grant Howard, group manager of Waikato Hospital. I have a background as an intensive care specialist.

I am personally determined to find a clinical director of the calibre our Emergency team deserves.

We are looking for a clinical director who will provide operational, professional and governance leadership. Our Emergency team has a vision and single minded pursuit of being world class.

Waikato Hospital is one of the biggest hospitals in New Zealand with the biggest regional trauma catchment.

We are currently constructing a new building for our Emergency Department which will be ready to occupy in January 2011. You can see it in progress behind me, in the photograph.


If you are still not sure we are the place for you, then contact me. I think I will be able to convince you that we are serious.

You can find an overview of the role below, and full details under our Vacancies listing, including the Position Description.

The closing date for applications is 28 February 2010.

The role The clinical director will direct and be responsible for the performance of Emergency Department as a whole (operational purpose) and the performance of individual medical staff in their clinical practice and behaviour (professional purpose). Please refer to the Position Description for full details. Who are we are looking for? You will be fully qualified in the specialty of Emergency Medicine, and be a Fellow of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine, or equivalent. You will have: a current practising certificate from the Medical Council of New Zealand previous experience in a leadership role minimum of five years’ recent experience in Emergency Medicine. Ideally, you will have post graduate training, for example in Emergency Medicine, Early Management of Severe Trauma course.

Waikato Hospital has a clear resource centre philosophy: As clinical director, you will know: what you are accountable for to whom you are accountable what resource you have to carry out the task have control over the part of the system and processes that you are accountable for and be supported through provision of management tools and reports to know how you are doing in relation to the task.

Please refer to the Position Description for full details.

New ED facilities and a modern model of care

We are building a brand new, purpose-built acute treatment facility. The current Emergency Department was built in the late 1960s. Over the years a number of alterations were made to accommodate changing requirements, resulting in a disjointed ED that does not support good patient or staff workflow.



Added to this, the business conditions for ED are changing. Presentations to Waikato Hospital's Emergency Department have been increasing at an average rate of two per cent a year and acuity of presentations is increasing at a much higher rate.



In 2002 the government approved a case for a new Emergency Department to be built at the western aspect of the hospital campus, as part of the major campus redevelopment project for Waikato Hospital.


Construction started in late 2008. The planned completion date of the new ED facilities is December 2010, with a projected ED service go-live date of early 2011.

The new ED will have 65 spaces compared to 52 currently, and the spaces are better designed. We will go from two resus rooms to four resus rooms, as well as two purpose-built procedural sedation rooms. A larger Kids Place takes us from a current bed space of eight to 16, which includes six purpose built short stay beds for paediatrics.

These purpose-built ED facilities reflect

• current best practice
• are designed to eliminate corridor bed spaces
• have dedicated low acuity and kidsplace areas.
  

Work is underway to link the new ED with a purpose-built MAPU (Medical Assessment and Planning Unit)

Our Emergency team

Working and living in the Waikato