University Hospitals is seeking a dynamic, highly visible nursing executive to serve as the Market Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) for the Northeast Market. This on-site leadership role will be based at UH Geneva Medical Center and UH Conneaut Medical Center and requires regular travel throughout the market to support nursing operations, leadership teams, and strategic initiatives across multiple community hospitals.
In this unique executive leadership position, the Market CNO will serve as the Chief Nursing Officer for UH Geneva Medical Center and UH Conneaut Medical Center while also providing market-level oversight and partnership to nursing leadership teams at UH Beachwood Medical Center, UH Lake West Medical Center, and UH TriPoint Medical Center.
The Market Chief Nursing Officer is the senior nursing leader responsible for the strategic, clinical, and operational leadership of nursing practice across a defined market of community hospitals. As a key member of the senior leadership team, this individual will drive the alignment of nursing standards, care delivery models, workforce strategies, quality outcomes, and patient experience throughout the market.
This role is ideal for a seasoned nursing executive who combines executive presence and strategic vision with a hands-on leadership approach. The successful candidate will be highly visible within the organization, actively engaging with frontline caregivers, nursing leaders, physicians, and operational partners to foster a culture of excellence, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
The Market CNO will lead efforts to standardize best practices, reduce variation, advance nursing excellence, strengthen leadership capability, improve workforce outcomes, and ensure the delivery of safe, high-quality, patient- and family-centered care across all assigned facilities. This leader will also partner closely with hospital, medical, and system executives to achieve strategic, financial, operational, and quality objectives while driving regulatory readiness and high reliability across the market.
This is an exceptional opportunity for an influential nursing leader who is passionate about developing teams, transforming care delivery, and shaping the future of community-based healthcare throughout Northeast Ohio.
What You Will Do
- Strategic Nursing Leadership and Market Alignment
- Provides leadership and oversight for nursing strategies, professional practice, and care delivery across the market’s community medical centers, ensuring alignment with system priorities and nursing standards.
- Leads cross-market initiatives to standardize care models, reduce variation, improve outcomes, and advance strategic nursing priorities.
- Partners with market president, operations leaders, physicians, and system executives to integrate nursing priorities into market strategy, operational plans, and resource allocation decisions.
- Represents nursing at the market level and serves as a visible advocate for high-reliability care, nursing excellence, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
- Advises senior leadership and governance bodies on market nursing priorities, risks, performance, and emerging issues affecting patient care and nursing practice.
- Participates in strategic and capital planning and ensures nursing priorities are reflected in market growth, transformation, and investment decisions.
- Advises the Board and/or its committees through regular reports regarding current issues relating to Nursing and other clinical practice.
Operational Oversight, Quality, and Clinical Performance
- Establishes a consistent market-wide approach to nursing quality, safety, patient experience, and evidence-based practice across community hospital settings.
- Ensures 24-hour accountability for nursing practice through effective leadership structures, escalation pathways, and collaboration with hospital-based nursing executives.
- Monitors market-level nursing performance metrics and holds leaders accountable for achieving targets related to quality, productivity, workforce, and patient experience.
- Systematically evaluates the quality and effectiveness of clinical practice and nursing services.
- Ensures nursing services are organized and resourced to provide safe, effective care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week across all assigned hospitals.
- Champions a culture of safety, transparency, and high reliability, using data and interdisciplinary collaboration to address risk and improve performance.
- Promotes evidence-based practice, nursing research, innovation, and continuous improvement as core expectations for nursing care across the market.
- Provides executive nursing leadership and labor relations oversight for union-represented nursing staff at UH Geneva Medical Center, partnering with Human Resources and Labor Relations to support collective bargaining agreement compliance, grievance resolution, and constructive labor-management relationships.
Nursing Leadership, Talent, and Culture
- Directly oversees the entity Chief Nursing Officers and provides coaching, direction, and performance accountability to nursing leaders across assigned facilities.
- Builds a strong nursing leadership pipeline across the market by mentoring entity CNOs and other nursing leaders, succession planning, and promoting professional growth.
- Establishes expectations for leader performance, engagement, accountability, and culture across across community hospital nursing teams.
- Drives strategies to recruit, retain, and develop nursing talent while strengthening engagement and reducing turnover across the market.
- Promotes a culture of recognition, inclusion, shared governance, and professional accountability throughout the nursing organization.
- Evaluates nursing leadership performance across the market and ensures timely action on performance, conduct, development, and succession needs.
- Champions an inclusive work environment grounded in dignity, respect, fairness, and alignment with organizational values.
- Fosters shared governance and professional nursing practice models that strengthen leader and frontline accountability across community hospitals.
- Fosters a climate conducive to educational experiences for nursing and other students.
- Assures appropriate orientation, education, performance evaluation, credentialing, and continuing professional development for personnel.
Financial, Workforce, and Resource Management
- Provides market-level oversight of nursing budgets, labor performance, and resource deployment across assigned hospitals.
- Partners with finance and operations leaders to achieve productivity, staffing, and expense targets while protecting quality, safety, and access.
- Develops and sponsors business cases for nursing investments, care model redesign, technology, and workforce initiatives that improve outcomes and efficiency.
- Leads market-wide strategies for workforce planning, staffing model standardization, contingency coverage, and reduction of premium labor and unnecessary variation.
Governance, Regulatory Compliance, and Professional Standards
- Ensures nursing policies, standards, and professional practice expectations are consistently implemented across the market and aligned with regulatory, accreditation, and professional requirements.
- Develops market-wide nursing governance structures, policies, and performance review processes that support safe, effective, and patient-centered care.
- Leads regulatory readiness and survey preparedness for nursing services across community hospitals and supports timely remediation of findings and risks.
- Collaborates with the System Director of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) to assure compliance of APRN credentialing/privileging and evaluation processes
- Assists the System and related affiliated operations in meeting DNV guidelines, licensure requirements, and quality assurance objectives.
- Maintains an awareness of DNV standards and guidelines, as well as clinical practice standards and state licensure requirements, including proposed changes.
Additional Responsibilities
- Performs other duties as assigned.
- Complies with all policies and standards.
- For specific duties and responsibilities, refer to documentation provided by the department during orientation.
- Must abide by all requirements to safely and securely maintain Protected Health Information (PHI) for our patients. Annual training, the UH Code of Conduct and UH policies and procedures are in place to address appropriate use of PHI in the workplace.
Education Qualifications
- Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing (BSN) required.
- Master’s Degree in Nursing (MSN) required.
Doctoral degree in Nursing, Healthcare Administration, Business, or related field preferred.
Experience Qualifications
- 10+ years of progressively responsible nursing leadership experience in a healthcare organization, including senior or multi-site leadership responsibility.
- Previous experience leading within a unionized healthcare environment and partnering with labor relations teams strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated experience overseeing nursing operations across multiple hospitals, entities, campuses, or care settings strongly preferred.
Skills and Abilities
- Executive presence with superior interpersonal, communication, and presentation skills.
- Deep knowledge of healthcare delivery systems, nursing operations, quality, safety, accreditation, and regulatory requirements.
- Demonstrated success leading nursing leaders across multiple facilities, service lines, or complex organizational structures.
- Ability to collaborate effectively with executives, physicians, operational leaders, and frontline teams while leading through influence and accountability.
- Demonstrated ability to improve patient outcomes, employee engagement, leader effectiveness, and service excellence in a complex healthcare environment.
- Strong financial acumen, including experience with labor management, budgeting, productivity, and business case development.
- Strong strategic thinking, analytical capability, change leadership, and decision-making skills.
- Maintains professional affiliations and pursues continued growth in nursing leadership, healthcare transformation, and leadership practice.
Licenses and Certifications
- Registered Nurse (RN), Ohio and/or Multi-State Compact License required upon hire; nurse executive certification preferred.
Physical Demands
- Standing - Occasionally
- Walking - Occasionally
- Sitting - Constantly
- Lifting - Rarely (up to 20 lbs)
- Carrying - Rarely (up to 20 lbs)
- Pushing - Rarely (up to 20 lbs)
- Pulling - Rarely (up to 20 lbs)
- Climbing - Rarely (up to 20 lbs)
- Balancing - Rarely
- Stooping - Rarely
- Kneeling - Rarely
- Crouching - Rarely
- Crawling - Rarely
- Reaching - Rarely
- Handling - Occasionally
- Grasping - Occasionally
- Feeling - Rarely
- Talking - Constantly
- Hearing - Constantly
- Repetitive Motions - Frequently
- Eye/Hand/Foot Coordination - Frequently