Rural Health Director

The Rural Health Director leads relationship management, service delivery performance, and program development for the UI Health Care Rural Network. This role is responsible for strengthening partnerships with rural health organizations, ensuring alignment with UI Health Care’s strategic priorities, and driving high-quality service across a complex, matrixed system. The role oversees the evaluation of service delivery models, service agreements, and partnership structures, and identifies opportunities for enhanced collaboration and growth. The position monitors client service requests, ensures service quality standards are consistently met, and leads initiatives that drive operational efficiency and continuous improvement, and works closely with senior leaders and internal divisions to help shape support models that advance rural health initiatives. This role coordinates key communication and governance activities to ensure project scopes, statements of work, and partner requests are aligned with program strategy and organizational goals.

The Director will also represent UI Health Care at rural partner sites, providing on-site leadership, relationship support, and program guidance.

Position Responsibilities:

Program & Relationship Management

• Actively advocates for rural network clients within UI Health Care.

• Build, manage, and maintain strong relationships with rural partners and key internal stakeholders, including the UI Health Care’s CEO Office, Strategy, Legal, Finance, and HCIS teams.

• Serve as the primary client relations liaison for business development, service management, and issue resolution.

• Review existing systems, service delivery models, and service agreements; assess new client requests and partnership opportunities.

• Lead or direct budget development as part of project planning, including creating and presenting project budgets, monitoring performance to budget, and supporting effective implementation in partnership with UI Health Care Finance.

• Identify, communicate, and resolve gaps between client expectations and delivered services.

Service Delivery & Performance Oversight

• Monitor organizational performance against service level agreements (SLAs), escalating risks, and resolving issues internally and externally.

• Conduct ongoing reviews of open service requests, identifying trends, risks, and improvement opportunities.

• Ensure adherence to SLAs and support continuous improvement in service quality and responsiveness.

• Assist in developing a sustainable, scalable support and service delivery model for rural partners.

Program Development & Internal Coordination

• Collaborate with internal UI Health Care divisions to define service offerings, program structures, and delivery processes.

• Partner closely with HCIS and Epic Community Connect liaisons to support IT-enabled rural health initiatives.

• Participate in financial and operational reviews of the UI Health Care Rural Network program.

Project & Statement of Work (SOW) Management

• Participate in defining project scope, timelines, deliverables, and statements of work.

• Draft and coordinate SOWs, ensure appropriate approvals, and track authorizations.

• Ensure projects and SOWs are entered and maintained accurately to support client communication and invoicing.