Alejandro Ocampo, medical affairs lead for Western Zone
By Jessica Long
Alejandro Ocampo has a passion for medicine – and for putting order to complexity. This skill was likely enhanced during his years practicing as a medical doctor in Mexico, but it could be just as likely connected to his background in health administration, education and leadership.
Ocampo started his position as the medical affairs lead for Western Zone in August 2021. This position was created to bridge the gap between physicians in the zone and the small but mighty medical affairs team reporting to Dr. Nicole Boutilier, vice president of Medicine, Nova Scotia Health.
Nova Scotia Health’s medical affairs leads are key leaders within their respective zones working to support health care staff. Leading various key initiatives while contributing to a culture of continuous improvement at Nova Scotia Health, medical affairs leads ensure that health care staff within the zone are supported by providing zone-based leadership, oversight, coordination, and guidance on operational matters, while ensuring staff’s connection with the provincial Medical Affairs Team and with the Department of Health and Wellness when required.
Each medical affairs lead supports physician leadership and works with medical education coordinators and residency program coordinators to deliver medical education within the zone.
Medical affairs leads also work collaboratively with zone-level recruitment staff to support physician recruitment efforts, specifically working with the physician recruitment staff to coordinate site visits, return of service selection and placement, and recruitment incentive processes.
“We envisioned having someone in the zone to navigate through complex physician issues, better connect physicians to the supports and services available, and advocate for them within the health system. We regularly receive feedback that physicians don’t know who to ask for help when navigating the system – we have now put that person in place within each zone and we know it will make a difference for our department and physicians across the province,” said Dr. Boutilier.
“Alejandro has been here a short time and we have already seen value in his work to improve our standardization around the approach to physician leadership contracts and compensation. His role will also improve the support for physicians by working with operational leadership in the zone – we are excited to see where he takes it,” she said.
The new roles have been added to each zone outside Central Zone and work most closely with the Zone Medical Director Office, which has always been a hub of activity for physicians. Each of the new zone medical affairs leads come with a varied and unique background that leverages their individual strengths, but together form a widely skilled team of issues managers and are known to be all-around “doers.” “One of the unique things I bring to the team is a love for data and the ability to organize it. Previously, I worked in the business intelligence department at Shannex and that was very data focused. There are so many opportunities here where I can provide value by finding new ways to collect and share physician and facility data to guide decision making and support our teams to better serve the needs of physicians,” said Ocampo.
Ocampo participates in Nova Scotia Health’s issues tracking system that keeps efficient prioritization between senior leadership in our organization and with the Department of Health and Wellness.
He said having an issue tracking process helps prioritize and track issues in his zone and keep on top of expectations. He has also started crafting his own knowledge base of solutions to issues to prevent reworking common issues as they arise.
Ocampo works most closely with the Zone Medical Executive Director’s (ZMED) office and credits his potential for success to strong relationships which have already started to develop. He shared that his strongest liaison is the executive assistant for the zone, Julianne Croft. This small team of two often tag-team on issues and priorities to ensure things move through the ZMED office quickly and efficiently.
Other priorities of the zone medical affairs lead’s work include participating and consulting with key members of Medical Affairs and physician leadership to help with the processes around vacancy replacement and recruitment and ensure those processes are running efficiently in line with Standard Operating Practices for the benefit of the zone.
Ocampo credits his Six Sigma training that focuses on reducing waste and creating efficient processes as a key benefit for this role, particularly in these areas, he said “creating lean business processes can add immediate value and improvement without major changes, this is a win for everyone.”
Dr. Pugh said that she can already see the benefit in having this new role in place to support her office.
“Alejandro is a welcome addition to the Western Zone team. He is very process oriented, communicates well and has a calm and thoughtful approach to his work,” said Dr. Pugh. “He sees things through, asks strategic questions, and his technological expertise is invaluable in this role.”
Ocampo moved to Canada after growing up in Mexico. He tries to go home once a year to escape the colder part of our winter season but shared that he enjoys the Nova Scotia climate and taking part in the many outdoor activities available in our province. He enjoys hiking and visiting parks with his Chow Chow, exploring the vineyards and beaches and taking camping trips.
While his office is in Bridgewater, he has recently enjoyed getting out on the weekends to visit other areas of Western Zone and become more familiar with the regions he serves in his role.
