Vice President – Patient Flow Collaboratives

The Institute for Healthcare Optimization (IHO) has an exciting opportunity for an experienced, driven and analytical healthcare leader interested in using scientific operations management methods to make a difference in the healthcare industry. The Vice President will serve as project director for managing a multi-year statewide (New Jersey) hospital education and operations redesign initiative, as well as for similar future projects. This position requires significant experience in clinical operations, healthcare consulting and project management. Experience in surgical services, hospital patient flow and performance improvement is strongly preferred. Expert consultative skills and experience in leading multidisciplinary teams involving physicians, nurses, healthcare administrators and decision support personnel is required. This position offers a unique opportunity to learn and participate in the growth of an internationally leading organization in the field of health care delivery and operations redesign.

Reporting and Key Interfaces

This vice president for patient flow collaboratives reports to the senior vice president responsible for project oversight, and offers high visibility to other IHO executives and initiatives. This position will have autonomy in managing project implementation while partnering closely with the senior vice president to ensure project success. This position will oversee a number of staff who will work on various project modules and manage relationships with individual hospitals participating in the collaborative. The vice president will partner with, and coordinate, IHO’s specialized resources sophisticated data analytics and clinical expertise.

Broad Responsibilities Include

• Ensure timely and successful implementation of collaborative initiatives
• Provide hands-on leadership for collaborative projects by establishing project teams with clear roles and responsibilities, milestones and workplans
• Manage relationships with state hospital associations, healthcare systems and individual hospital leadership as needed
• Build a team at IHO that is motivated and competent in the management of patient flow collaborative projects

Specific Responsibilities Include

• Serve as IHO point person for collaborative implementation
• Oversee organization of, and facilitate, meetings, conference calls and webinars between IHO and participating hospitals
• Coordinate IHO resources such as data analytics and clinical expertise as needed
• Preempt, identify and resolve project issues in a timely manner
• Recruit, oversee and coach a team of project management staff. Develop reporting structure, roles and responsibilities, and performance plans for reporting staff
• Develop an efficient and effective IHO approach for collaborative projects
• Develop project tools such as white papers, documentation, and analytic templates
• Develop and present regular progress reports for IHO executives and client team
• Document project results – quality and safety metrics as well as efficiency and throughput – and develop materials for publication in lay media as well as professional journals
• Participate as faculty in IHO’s educational programs

Key Factors for Success

• Organizational and leadership skills 
• Deep interest in using data driven methods to address healthcare operations problems 
• Skills to juggle multiple components of large projects involving 20 or more hospitals 
• Sound managerial judgment to preempt, resolve and escalate issues in a timely manner 
• High tolerance for ambiguity, and resourcefulness and creativity to continuously develop new solutions 
• Ability to present complex concepts and materials in a clear and succinct manner 
• Attention to detail 
• Strong interest in professional and organizational growth  

Year-One Goals  

• Establish self in the organization by learning the culture, building relationships and credibility with senior managers, as well as with staff
• Build internal equity by quickly learning and internalizing new concepts, while leveraging own past experience
• Enable SVP to minimize involvement in implementation issues by exercising excellent managerial judgment and communication skills necessary for a team-based environment
• Recruit high quality staff and build a smooth functioning project management team
• Establish self as a learning oriented manager who enables team and individual performance excellence
• Successful and timely completion of New Jersey collaborative milestones

Desired skills and experience

• 10+ years of healthcare experience required
• Healthcare consulting and project leadership experience required
• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills required
• Excellent oral and written presentation skills required
• Experience with healthcare operations data – e.g. scheduling, surgery case data, inpatient ADT (admission, discharge and transfer), etc. required
• Clinical background a plus
• Familiarity with statistics and operations research methods such as queuing analysis and discrete event simulation a plus
• MBA / MPH / MS preferred  

Compensation, Benefits and other

The VP – Patient Flow Collaboratives position at IHO offers tremendous opportunities to grow professionally and to contribute to the future of healthcare operations. The starting salary for this position will be in the mid-100s, commensurate with experience. Competitive health and other benefits offered. IHO focuses on performance while offering flexibility to its employees. Approximately 30% travel is to be expected.

About the Institute for Healthcare Optimization  

The Institute for Healthcare Optimization is a non-profit organization dedicated to applying operations management principles and practices in the healthcare delivery setting. IHO is a leader in healthcare operations management and has developed a unique and highly effective approach for managing variability in patient flow. This approach, developed by the faculty of IHO, has been endorsed by the Institute of Medicine, the American Hospital Association, and the Government Accountability Office, among others. For more information about IHO visit www.ihoptimize.org

To apply, click here.