Communications Specialist - VITAL

St. Michael's Hospital; Toronto; On-site; CAD 60,000 - 80,000; Part time

Job summary

St. Michael's Hospital is seeking a Communications Specialist for its VITAL platform, which supports healthcare analytics across Ontario. The role involves managing communication strategies, media relations, and event planning, demanding excellent project management and relationship skills. Ideally suited for candidates with a background in journalism or public relations, this position offers a dynamic environment focused on healthcare improvement.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 3-5 years in writing, editing, and communications.
• Experience in health care/life sciences and with executives.
• Ability to communicate in English and French preferred.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement communications plans for VITAL.
• Manage media relations and stakeholder communication.
• Coordinate event planning and logistics for GEMINI meetings.

Skills

Written communication

Interpersonal skills

Project management

Relationship-building

Media relations

Education

Undergraduate degree/diploma in journalism, public relations, communications

Tools

MS Office Suite

Web-based content management systems

Adobe Suite

Job description

Join to apply for the Communications Specialist - VITAL role at St. Michael's Hospital

Join to apply for the Communications Specialist - VITAL role at St. Michael's Hospital

Communications Specialist – VITAL

GEMINI ( www.geminimedicine.ca ) is a unique big data platform in the Canadian healthcare landscape using advanced methods and analytics to extract and standardize data captured in hospital electronic health records. GEMINI currently exists at 30+ Ontario hospitals (covering ~60% of Ontario’s medical hospital beds) and supports the Ontario General Medicine Quality Improvement Network, GeMQIN, a provincial network led by Ontario Health to improve care for general medicine hospital patients. General medicine patients represent 40% of emergency admissions to hospital and are the largest group of hospitalized patients. GEMINI is a collaborative data and analytics platform that allows Ontario hospitals to accelerate research and quality improvement, leading to excellent hospital care. It is the largest such network in Canada.

GEMINI is building the Vital real-time health data for Trials, Artificial Intelligence and a Learning Health System (VITAL) platform. VITAL advances a secure, high-performance computing environment in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta that allows hospital data to be collected every 24 hours, linked, deidentified, and accessed by researchers through a unified portal.

The VITAL team at GEMINI is currently recruiting a Communications Specialist to manage the development and implementation of VITAL’s communications plan. This includes managing the development and implementation of VITAL’s communications plan and providing ongoing communications support to the VITAL team and external partners and stakeholders. To support relationship development and pan-Canadian collaboration, this role will play a critical role managing event planning and coordination.

This will be a challenging, rewarding, and fast-paced environment with interaction with clinicians, researchers, data scientists, and hospital leaders. The ideal candidate will possess excellent relationship-building skills with inter-institutional stakeholders, initiative, and honed project management skills.

Duties And Responsibilities

Performs communications management responsibilities (45%)

Lead the communication planning and development of audience-specific strategies that align with VITAL’s overarching communications strategy and priorities

Develop, coordinate and implement focused communications plans for initiatives that complement VITAL’s overall communications strategy and strategic directions.

Work with VITAL leadership to develop, coordinate and respond to media relations opportunities including issues management.

Respond in a professional and timely manner to partner and stakeholder requests and incoming questions from the public.

Work collaboratively with the UHT Communications and Public Affairs team, as well as external partners and stakeholders.

Provide ongoing communications support and strategic counsel regarding the VITAL brand to other VITAL and GEMINI team members as well as external partners and stakeholders; p rovide advice and consultation to VITAL leadership on strategic communications channels to the VITAL social media accounts to use (e.g. LinkedIn)

Develops and manages the content calendar for future website and social media accounts

Manages and develops content for the VITAL mailing list

Develop measurement tools to evaluate the impact of VITAL communication strategies.

Content creation and outreach (40%)

Writes website content and develops graphics to support all communication channels.

Liaise with partner organizations to increase the reach of VITAL materials

Work with an illustrator when required to design tools and resources to support media outreach campaigns

Coordinate the launch of special campaigns on different communication channels

Coordinate media requests with staff and spokespeople

Develop content for quarterly newsletters

Ensures VITAL contact lists are accurate and up-to-date

Performs Event Planning and Coordination (15 %)

Management of in-person meetings of the GEMINI and VITAL investigators and collaborators:

Sources venues to hold meetings

Manages planning team events and other efforts to enhance GEMINI’s office workplace culture through social and other activities

Negotiates costs for venue, catering, audio-visual equipment, accommodation, promotional material and any other services required for the event

Plans and coordinates logistics related to the events

Develops communication and marketing materials for the events

Designs and coordinates the meeting agenda with support from upper management and the planning committee

Coordinates and manages the day of events by ensuring everything is running on schedule and troubleshooting any issues that arise

Qualifications

Undergraduate degree/diploma in journalism, public relations, communications, or related area

Minimum of 3-5 years of experience in writing, editing and communications (preferably in the health care/ life sciences sector)

Experience working and communicating with scientists, high level executives and/or philanthropic donors; experience working with members of the public and patient engagement an asset.

Demonstrated capacity to manage multiple priorities and time sensitive projects

Demonstrated level of independence in leading and delivering projects on time

Excellent English written communication skills, with an emphasis on both scientific/technical and plain language writing skills as required for funding proposals and/or outreach materials. Ability to communicate in both official languages (English and French) strongly preferred.

Strong interpersonal, organizational, customer service and oral presentation skills

Proficiency with MS Office Suite, including Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel

Experience using web-based content management systems (CMS)

Experience managing social media accounts, such as Twitter and Facebook (experience managing corporate social media accounts is an asset)

Experience in the use of Adobe Suite programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, InDesign) is an asset

Unity Health Toronto is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive organization. We strive to provide a recruitment process that is barrier-free and in compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and the Ontario Human Rights Code. We understand that you may require an accommodation at any stage of the recruitment process. When you are contacted, please inform the Talent Acquisition Specialist and we will work with you to meet your accommodation needs. We want to emphasize that all accommodation requests are handled with the utmost confidentiality, respecting your privacy and dignity.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Part-time

Job function

• Job function

  Marketing, Public Relations, and Writing/Editing

• Industries

  Hospitals and Health Care

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