Surgical Command-Platform Recovery Authority — Tertiary Hospitals

The mandate

The theatre-platform executive resigned after inconsistent procedure, bed, instrument and patient-readiness states contributed to two days of cancellations across three hospitals. Clinicians protected safety through manual huddles, but the digital command view continued marking cases ready after prerequisites changed. An external clinical review is under way, and the network needs one executive to restore platform trust without prejudging professional findings.

The interim must begin within two weeks and hold the Melbourne-based executive seat for nine months. The first six weeks focus on safe-state reconciliation and release control; two complete elective planning cycles follow. A permanent search starts after the independent review defines the future remit, with five weeks reserved for successor shadowing before the non-extendable assignment closes.

Handover requires every listed case to expose accountable readiness for patient, clinician, theatre, bed, equipment, blood and sterile instruments; two peak exercises and eight weekly operating lists must meet detection and correction targets. The successor will command an unannounced readiness discrepancy, approve a release and accept residual source, workflow and clinical-adoption limitations.

The interim may freeze platform changes, remove unsafe automation, set operational data contracts, redirect the sanctioned A$24 million recovery and appoint temporary technical incident leads. Clinical cancellation, patient communication, permanent appointment, procurement beyond existing frameworks and spend above budget require authorised hospital executives. The authority cannot override a clinician, sterilisation release, bed controller or patient-consent decision.

Electronic medical record replacement, redesign of clinical pathways and physical theatre-capacity expansion are outside this assignment. The leader may require reliable interfaces and decision evidence but does not own workforce rostering, surgical prioritisation or investigation of individual clinical conduct. Recovery is confined to trustworthy coordination and explicit human authority across the perioperative journey.

Why this seat is open

The failures showed that a polished command screen could conceal disagreement among authoritative clinical and operational sources. Resignation removed executive control during an independent review and continuing surgical demand. A temporary leader must restore safe platform behaviour, maintain professional boundaries and leave a permanent appointee able to test rather than merely trust theatre readiness.

What you will own

• Reconstruct cancelled and delayed cases across booking, consent, pre-assessment, staffing, bed, instrument, blood, theatre and patient-notification states.
• Define authoritative readiness decisions and update obligations without implying that platform state replaces accountable clinical or operational judgement.
• Remove or constrain automation whose stale dependencies can continue advertising readiness after a prerequisite changes.
• Direct exercises involving bed loss, instrument quarantine, late pathology, clinician absence, emergency insertion and integration outage.
• Establish journey objectives for discrepancy detection, correction, escalation, acknowledgement and safe manual continuity across all campuses.
• Govern recovery investment against fewer preventable cancellations, faster discrepancy resolution, trustworthy release and reduced shadow coordination.
• Induct the successor through live list preparation, an unseen failure exercise and signed acceptance of remaining workflow and source debt.

Candidate qualifications

• Held executive digital or operations-platform authority within a multi-hospital environment supporting theatres or other time-critical clinical flow.
• Recovered a clinical command system whose displayed state conflicted with authoritative human or departmental readiness.
• Designed integrations and escalation around professional decision rights rather than centralising clinical authority in software.
• Led safe release and downtime exercises involving clinicians, nursing, beds, diagnostics, sterile services and patient operations.
• Worked alongside independent clinical review without contaminating evidence or substituting a technology conclusion for professional judgement.
• Handed a recovered hospital-platform function to permanent leadership through observed operating cycles and unannounced tests.

Non-negotiables

• Available within two weeks for exclusive on-site service across the Melbourne hospital network and out-of-hours incident command.
• Has held accountable production authority in acute healthcare; generic workflow or scheduling-platform leadership does not qualify.
• No undisclosed relationship with the electronic medical record, theatre-system or integration suppliers involved in recovery.
• Will preserve clinician and authorised operations decision rights even when manual safeguards reduce nominal platform efficiency.

1. 49 words maximum. State your Melbourne availability and one clinical platform state you found diverging from authoritative readiness.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you restore digital coordination without transferring a clinician’s decision right into software?
3. 49 words maximum. Which unseen theatre disruption would you require a permanent successor to command before handover?