Neurosurgery Patient Access and Clinical Operations Coordinator - The Division of Neurosurgery [...]

Please note this is a courtesy posting. This position would be employed through the Academic Clinicians' Management Services (ACMS), and not Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

Purpose

The Division of Neurosurgery seeks approval to recruit a Neurosurgery Patient Access and Clinical Operations Coordinator to support Ministry of Health–funded improvements in neurosurgical access, patient flow, and operational accountability. The role will strengthen the hospital’s capacity to deliver timely, coordinated, and measurable neurosurgical care for Ontarians by reducing administrative delays, improving referral closure rates, and ensuring efficient use of funded clinical resources.

Role Overview

The Coordinator will serve as the operational hub for neurosurgical patient access. Core responsibilities include coordinating referral intake, ensuring referral documentation is complete at point of receipt, tracking urgent and routine referrals through to disposition, supporting patient appointment pathways, liaising with internal hospital services, and escalating barriers to timely care.

The role will also support regional and urgent neurosurgical referral pathways, including ensuring that urgent (CRITICALL) referrals directed to the neurosurgical clinic – distinct from referrals managed through the RAIN clinic – receive closed‑loop tracking, documented case status, and timely follow‑up or disposition. No urgent referral will be left without a recorded outcome.

Operational Reporting and Performance Measurement

A central function of the position is to develop and maintain operational reporting for the neurosurgical service, enabling the Division and hospital leadership to monitor whether funded activities are improving access, reliability, and productivity. Reporting will track referral volumes across all sources and urgency levels, time to acknowledgment, time to assessment, clinic utilization, unresolved and aged referrals, cancellations, and urgent referral disposition.

Key Performance Indicators

• Referral acknowledgment time – Percentage of referrals acknowledged to the referring provider – Target ≥95% within 2 business days
• Time to first assessment (Wait 1) – Days from referral receipt to first specialist assessment, by priority level – Target Meet Ontario Health priority‑level access targets; reduce median Wait 1 by 20% in Year 1
• Urgent referral disposition – Percentage of urgent/CRITICALL referrals triaged and dispositioned – Target 100% within 24–48 hours
• Referral closure rate – Percentage of referrals with a documented outcome (booked, redirected, or declined with rationale) – Target ≥98%; zero referrals unresolved beyond 30 days
• Referral completeness at intake – Percentage of referrals complete on first receipt, reducing back‑and‑forth delay – Target ≥90% within 6 months
• Clinic utilization – Booked and attended slots as a percentage of available clinic capacity – Target ≥90% utilization
• Cancellation and no‑show rate – Percentage of clinic appointments cancelled or missed – Target Reduce by 15% in Year 1 through confirmation and rebooking workflows

Financial and Administrative Accountability

The Coordinator will assist with financial and administrative tracking for approved clinical operations, including documenting expenditures, reconciling budgets against the Ministry funding envelope, and preparing records required for internal review or external accountability. The role ensures the Division can demonstrate, with auditable documentation, that funded resources are deployed as intended.

Workflow Standardization and Quality Improvement

The position will support workflow standardization, development and maintenance of standard operating procedures for referral intake and triage, and quality‑improvement initiatives targeting bottlenecks in neurosurgical patient pathways.

Current State and Risk of Inaction

The Division currently has no dedicated coordination function for neurosurgical referral intake and tracking. Without this role, the Division faces continued risk of unresolved referrals, delayed urgent case disposition, underutilized funded clinic capacity, and an inability to produce the access‑and‑flow reporting required to demonstrate outcomes of Ministry‑funded activity.