Dr. Smith serves as vice president and chief medical officer at Tucson Medical Center, providing strategic and operational leadership for the clinical enterprise and partnering with executive leaders to advance high-quality, patient-centered care. He leads clinical strategy, aligns physicians around organizational goals, and strengthens engagement across the medical staff while overseeing clinical operations focused on efficiency, integration and collaborative quality programs. Working with the chief of staff and chief of staff-elect, he supports medical staff governance and physician representation and guides physician recruitment, especially for hospital-based physicians and key specialists. He played an integral role during a major transition as TMC moved from a primarily independent physician model to one with more employed providers, developing clinical programs in emergency general surgery, gastrointestinal hospitalists, urology, and most recently cardiology to improve access, coordination and outcomes. He built regular communication forums such as physician town halls and a weekly physician newsletter to promote transparency and shared problem-solving, and he supported physician wellness through the American Medical Association’s “Joy in Medicine” program. He was tasked with aligning independent and employed physicians around key quality metrics, and has contributed to reductions in hospital-acquired infections, stronger patient safety indicator performance and improved mortality index results. He also led the systemwide rollout of high-reliability organization principles across TMC Health. He is currently creating a physician leadership development initiative to build skills, support succession planning and sustain engagement across the medical staff.
