Executive Service
PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Background Check:
If a background check is required for this position, enter this statement: This position requires a criminal background check. Therefore, you may be required to provide information about your criminal history in order to be considered for this position.
Who we are and what we do:
The Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services provides prevention, treatment, and recovery services statewide through four state psychiatric hospitals and a network of community providers.Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute, located in Nashville, is the Department's largest psychiatric hospital. It serves 18 counties and operates 232 beds across acute, sub-acute, and forensic programs with a multidisciplinary workforce of 573 employees. The hospital is accredited by The Joint Commission and certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
How you make a difference in this role:
Executive knowledge of hospital operations, healthcare quality, patient safety, regulatory compliance, budgeting, and workforce management.
Demonstrated ability to build leadership teams, engage employees, and strengthen organizational culture.
Commitment to ethical leadership, transparency, patient rights, and public service.
Strong analytical, critical-thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.
Resilience, adaptability, and composure in emergencies, high-risk situations, and competing priorities.
Excellent verbal and written communication, collaboration, stakeholder-management, and strategic-planning skills.
Job Overview:
Reporting to the TDMHSAS Chief of Hospital Operations, the Psychiatric Hospital Chief Executive Officer provides strategic, operational, and administrative leadership for all hospital functions.
The CEO leads a multidisciplinary workforce of 573 employees and an executive team responsible for clinical services, nursing, quality, finance, human resources, facilities, and hospital administration.
The CEO is responsible for providing visionary, strategic, and operational leadership for Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute and for fostering a high-performing organization that advances the TDMHSAS mission and exemplifies the values of Customer Focus, Integrity, Inspired Purpose, Excellence, Compassionate and Effective Leadership, Solutions and Outcomes Orientation, and Partnership.
The CEO is also accountable for safe, effective, patient-centered care; regulatory and accreditation compliance; fiscal stewardship; workforce performance; and organizational effectiveness.
The position collaborates with hospital leadership, state and local officials, federal and state legislators, community partners, courts, regulatory agencies, patients, families, and other stakeholders to improve behavioral health outcomes across Middle Tennessee.
This position provides an opportunity to lead Tennessee's largest state psychiatric hospital and shape the delivery of behavioral healthcare across Middle Tennessee.
The CEO will have broad influence over patient care, workforce strategy, organizational culture, hospital operations, and partnerships across the public behavioral health system
Key Responsibilities:
Provide executive leadership for all hospital operations and establish a culture and organizational direction aligned with the Department's mission, values, and strategic priorities.
Maintain compliance with The Joint Commission, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, state agencies, and other applicable regulatory and accrediting bodies.
Lead workforce planning and talent management, including recruitment, retention, leadership development, performance management, and personnel actions.
Lead strategic initiatives that improve clinical outcomes, workforce stability, operational efficiency, patient and employee experience, and the hospital's long-term capacity to serve the region.
Ensure the delivery of high-quality, trauma-informed, recovery-oriented, person-centered care through effective policies, performance monitoring, and continuous quality improvement.
Oversee the hospital's physical plant, infrastructure, security, technology, equipment, and other operational resources.
Oversee revenue, expenditures, staffing costs, contracts, procurement, and other financial indicators to ensure responsible resource use and operation within the approved budget.
Participate in quarterly Governing Body meetings and provide meaningful reports regarding hospital operations, quality indicators, patient safety, staffing, financial performance, regulatory compliance, and strategic priorities.
Facilitate Board of Trustees meetings and maintain productive relationships with board members.
Maintain transparent communication with internal and external stakeholders and ensure complaints, grievances, employee relations matters, and organizational conflicts are addressed promptly and appropriately.
Minimum Qualifications:
Graduation from an accredited college or university with a bachelor's degree in public health, business administration, or other acceptable field and experience equivalent to five or more years of increasingly responsible full-time managerial related experience, including at least two years in a hospital or comparable setting. Additional graduate coursework in hospital administration, public health, business administration, or another related acceptable field may substitute for the required non-specialized experience on a year-for-year basis, to a maximum of two years. Applicants with managerial experience in behavioral healthcare and those possessing a master's degree in hospital administration, public health, business administration, or a related field will receive preferred consideration.
Pursuant to the State of Tennessee's Workplace Discrimination and Harassment policy, the State is firmly committed to the principle of fair and equal employment opportunities for its citizens and strives to protect the rights and opportunities of all people to seek, obtain, and hold employment without being subjected to illegal discrimination and harassment in the workplace. It is the State's policy to provide an environment free of discrimination and harassment of an individual because of that person's race, color, national origin, age (40 and over), sex, pregnancy, religion, creed, disability, veteran's status or any other category protected by state and/or federal civil rights laws.
