Chief Quality and Patient Safety Officer — Interim, Hospital Group

The mandate

A preventable medication event led the board to suspend the quality chief pending investigation. Subsequent review found weak incident escalation and inconsistent closure evidence across the group's hospitals, creating a gap too consequential for acting cover.

The interim is required within two weeks and will serve for eighteen months through investigation remediation and reaccreditation. A permanent search begins after the regulator accepts the first progress report, allowing at least two months of overlap before exit.

Handover occurs only when every root-cause action is independently verified, severe-event reporting reaches the board within twenty-four hours for six months, reaccreditation is secured at all in-scope sites, and the successor has chaired two complete assurance cycles.

The quality chief may stop unsafe clinical activity, require corrective plans and approve training or audit spend up to ₹60 lakh. Dismissal of clinicians, public disclosure and capital remediation over ₹1.5 crore remain board matters; the interim cannot adjudicate individual professional liability.

Commercial growth, insurer negotiations and broad patient-experience redesign are not included. Work on those agendas must not dilute sentinel-event closure, clinical assurance or accreditation readiness.

Why this seat is open

The suspension followed a sentinel event that exposed more than one local mistake. The board needs visibly independent authority while the employment investigation runs its course. Eighteen months covers corrective implementation, evidence maturation and a disciplined transition to a permanently appointed chief.

What you will own

• Reopen the sentinel-event analysis with independent clinical reviewers and issue a board-approved causal statement.
• Decide which services require temporary restriction until staffing, medication and escalation safeguards are proven.
• Build one severe-event taxonomy, twenty-four-hour notification route and evidence standard across the hospital group.
• Verify corrective actions through observation, record sampling and outcome data rather than self-certified completion.
• Direct the reaccreditation plan, mock surveys and closure of every major nonconformity before external assessment.
• Issue a quarterly patient-safety assurance opinion that names unresolved exposure and accountable executives.
• Prepare the permanent chief with investigation records, regulator correspondence, audit trails and two chaired committee cycles.

Candidate qualifications

• Senior clinical or quality executive background with more than twenty years in accredited hospital environments.
• Personal leadership of a sentinel-event response involving board scrutiny, regulator communication and system-wide remediation.
• Mastery of root-cause methods, medication safety, infection surveillance, clinical audit and accreditation evidence standards.
• Willingness and credibility to stop clinical activity when safeguards are inadequate, even under revenue or reputation pressure.
• Experience designing assurance that distinguishes completed actions from demonstrably effective controls.
• Board-level communication skill, including concise opinions on residual clinical risk and limitations of evidence.

Non-negotiables

• Available in Ahmedabad within two weeks and onsite through critical investigation and survey periods.
• No prior involvement with the event, suspended executive or external accreditation assessor.
• Prepared to exercise documented stop-work authority when immediate patient risk exists.
• Able to remain for eighteen months without concurrent hospital-board or executive commitments.

1. 49 words maximum. What is your earliest start date, and can you commit exclusively for eighteen months?
2. 49 words maximum. Describe a sentinel-event action you refused to close and the evidence still missing.
3. 49 words maximum. Which service have you paused for safety, and what conditions authorised its restart?