The Senior Director of Ambulatory and Physician Practices Communications is a senior leader within the Duke University Health System’s (DUHS) Internal Communications department. This role is responsible for developing and executing a comprehensive communications strategy that advances the priorities of DUHS’s ambulatory enterprise and physician practices (Duke Health Integrated Practice (DHIP) and Duke Primary Care (DPC)) including Duke Health’s outpatient clinics as well as the clinical departments and community practices.

The Senior Director provides strategic counsel to senior leaders across the physician practices and ambulatory operations and collaborates closely with system communications partners in Marketing, External Relations, and Internal Communications. This role ensures clear, aligned, and proactive communication that supports patient care, access, patient experience, operational transformation, workforce engagement, and DUHS’s mission to provide outstanding care across the clinical departments, physician practices and all ambulatory settings.

Strategic Leadership & Systemwide Collaboration

• Serve as the strategic communications lead for the DUHS ambulatory platform and physician practices, ensuring alignment with DUHS priorities, operational goals, and systemwide communications strategies.
• Partner closely with DUHS and ambulatory leadership to understand key issues, opportunities, and emerging needs across clinics, outpatient centers, and supporting functions.
• Provide strategic counsel on communication approaches related to access, care delivery, safety, patient experience, provider engagement, and operational improvements.
• Ensure tight coordination with Marketing, Media Relations, Internal Communications, and Digital teams to support a unified, aligned, and timely communications approach.
• Lead integrated communications planning for large cross-functional initiatives impacting ambulatory operations.
• Use qualitative and quantitative data to guide strategy
• Anticipate communication risks, misalignment or workforce impact and proactively design mitigation strategies.
• Drive executive communications, including leadership remarks and narrative development, serving as a trusted advisor to senior leaders to ensure messages are strategically aligned, clearly framed, and delivered in each leader’s authentic voice.

Internal Communications, Workforce Engagement & Change Management

• Build and execute an internal communications strategy that meets the needs of specialty and primary care practices and a diverse ambulatory workforce, including clinical care teams, physicians, and administrative staff across multiple sites and settings.
• Establish and enforce internal communications governance, standards, and escalation protocols for ambulatory and physician practice communications.
• Work closely with the Duke School of Medicine communication office to support internal communications for clinical departments, ensuring alignment with clinical department
• Design and lead change communications strategies that support awareness, understanding, adoption, and sustainment of operational and clinical initiatives.
• Translate complex operational and clinical changes into clear, role-specific, and actionable messaging for frontline teams.
• Oversee development and delivery of communications across channels including intranet, team newsletters, operational updates, executive messaging, video, and leadership toolkits.
• Develop toolkits, FAQs, and cascading communication assets to support leaders in consistent message delivery.
• Establish feedback loops to assess understanding, sentiment, and adoption, and adjust messaging accordingly.

Operational Communication

• Support communication strategies that advance patient access, clinic flow, care coordination, and patient experience across ambulatory sites.
• Collaborate with Marketing and Digital teams to ensure patient-facing communication (web, scheduling, signage, outreach, etc.) is clear, accurate, and aligned with operational realities.
• Provide oversight and coordination for communications during service disruptions, clinic relocations, construction impacts, or patient-facing operational changes.

Crisis, Emergency, and Business Continuity Communication

• Serve as the ambulatory communications leader during emergency situations, including weather events, service disruptions, safety incidents, or business continuity needs.
• Partner with Emergency Management, ambulatory operations, and system communications leaders to deliver timely, accurate, and actionable communication to staff and patients.
• Develop templates, playbooks, and rapid-response processes that ensure readiness and effectiveness during critical events.

Team Leadership & Operational Excellence

• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of communicators supporting ambulatory operations.
• Collaborate in a matrixed environment with entity and system communicators to ensure consistent practice standards, alignment, and information flow.
• Oversee communication workflows, project timelines, and resource allocation to ensure proactiveness, efficiency, responsiveness, and strategic focus.
• Use data, analytics, and feedback to evaluate communication effectiveness and continuously improve strategies, channels, and content.

Employee Engagement, Culture & Campaigns

• Partner with HR, ambulatory operations, and clinical leadership including the clinical departments and our community practices to develop communication strategies that strengthen staff engagement, retention, and culture.
• Design and execute internal communication campaigns that strengthen connection to DUHS values, culture, and system priorities across ambulatory teams.
• Ensure all content meets DUHS standards for brand, design, accessibility, and compliance.
• Elevate stories that highlight ambulatory achievements, care excellence, and workforce contributions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in communications, journalism, marketing, public relations, or a related field; master’s degree preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in communications, marketing, or public relations—preferably in healthcare, ambulatory operations, or large complex organizations.
• Experience leading integrated communications strategies with measurable impact.
• Demonstrated ability to partner with executives, clinicians, and operational leaders.
• Strong leadership, collaboration, and project management skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and adapt quickly to emerging needs.
• Exceptional writing, editing, and strategic storytelling skills.

Required Qualifications at this Level

Education: Work requires communication, analytical and organizational skills generally acquired through completion of a bachelor's degree program in Journalism, Communications, English or a related discipline. A Master’s degree or commensurate experience in healthcare or community-based organizations is preferred.

Experience: Work requires ten years experience in writing, public relations, communications or a related discipline

OR AN EQUIVALENT COMBINATION OF RELEVANT EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE

Degrees, Licensure, and/or Certification:

Accreditation in Public Relations preferred.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

Excellent writing, communication, and presentation skills. Highly organized with strong attention to detail. Ability to inspire confidence, earn trust, and collaborate effectively to build stakeholder relationships and support successful communications campaigns.

Duke is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing employment opportunity without regard to an individual's age, color, disability, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy related conditions), sexual orientation or military status.