Assistant Director, Laboratory Operations Management

Kaiser Permanente; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Kaiser Permanente is seeking a senior laboratory operations leader in Santa Clara to oversee day-to-day clinical laboratory operations and ensure timely, accurate reporting within a labor management partnership environment. The role covers competency, training, quality assurance, safety, and regulatory activities across designated units.

The position emphasizes strategic planning, talent development, and cross-functional collaboration with medical staff and external vendors to align with

Qualifications

• Minimum five (5) years of leadership experience in a healthcare related field.
• Minimum one (1) year of experience managing operational budgets.
• California licensure requirements for clinical laboratory roles (e.g., Clinical Immunohematologist, Toxicologist, Hematologist, Histocompatibility, Reproductive Biologist, Genetic Molecular Biologist, Microbiologist, Chemist, Clinical Laboratory Scientist, Cytogeneticist) at hire.

Responsibilities

• Develops and coaches talent; sets performance expectations and drives growth.
• Oversees unit planning, resources, and alignment with departmental strategies.
• Maintains testing and training standards; ensures competency and training resources.
• Ensures compliance and accreditation; manages licensure renewals and regulatory documentation.
• Links lab services with other departments; liaises with vendors and public health organizations.
• Implements process improvements; optimizes inventory and cost efficiency.
• Drives quality management; leads corrective/preventive actions from audits.

Skills

Leadership

Budget management

Healthcare ops

Strategic planning

Quality & regulatory

Education

Bachelor's degree in medical lab science or equivalent, or health care related field

Job description

Job Summary:

In addition to the responsibilities listed below, this position is also responsible for ensuring timely and accurate laboratory reporting in the section they oversee; overseeing day-to-day operations of the clinical laboratory in a labor management partnership environment, including both credentialed and non-credentialed personnel; maintaining competency in laboratory testing and performing bench work as appropriate; and overseeing quality assurance, safety, compliance, regulatory, and accreditation standards and activities.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Creates and advocates for developmental opportunities for others; builds collaborative, cross-functional relationships. Solicits and acts on performance feedback; works with leaders and employees to set goals and provide open feedback and coaching to drive performance improvement. Pursues professional growth; hires, trains, and develops talent for growth opportunities; strategically evaluates talent for succession planning; sets performance management guidelines and expectations across teams / units. Oversees implementation, adapts, and stays up to date with organizational change, challenges, feedback, best practices, processes, and industry trends; shares best practices within and across teams. Fosters open dialogue amongst team members, engages, motivates, and promotes collaboration within and across teams; motivates teams to meet business objectives. Delegates tasks and decisions as appropriate; provides appropriate support, guidance and scope; encourages development and consideration of options in decision making; fosters access to stakeholders.
• Manages designated units or teams by translating business plans into tactical action items; oversees the completion of work assignments and identifies opportunities for improvement; ensures all policies and procedures are followed; partners with key stakeholders and business leaders to ensure products and/or services meet requirements and expectations while aligning with departmental strategies. Aligns team efforts; builds accountability for and measuring progress in achieving results; assumes responsibility for decision making; fosters direct reports to resolve escalated issues as appropriate. Communicates goals and objectives; incorporates resources, costs, and forecasts into team and unit plans; ensures matrixed resources are fulfilling service or performance requirements across reporting lines. Removes obstacles that impact performance; identifies and addresses improvement opportunities; guides performance and develops contingency plans accordingly; influences teams and units to operate in alignment with operational and business objectives.
• Maintains testing and training standards by: advocating for the departments strategic initiatives and the development and implementation of technical and/or non-technical training materials while also resolving issues related to training and/or training resources; ensuring relevant personnel competency meets defined standards; and developing strategies to meet future training needs, aligning regular, in-service, and competency training programs with those future needs, and completing own training.
• Maintains compliance and accreditation by: defining and communicating policies and work instructions in alignment with applicable regulations, license requirements, accreditation standards, and inspection checklists pertaining to laboratories and facilities where testing is performed; ensuring assessment of adherence to all requirements related to the recruitment, processing, testing, storage, and distribution of materials and samples; implementing innovative corrective and preventive actions for addressing escalated, higher complexity, technical and/or non-technical deficiencies in regulatory/accreditation inspection processes; overseeing the renewal process for all applicable licensure; and ensuring updates are made to technical and/or non-technical documentation.
• Serves as a link between medical laboratory services and other services by: managing strategic planning and implementation related to regulatory/accreditation changes and issues, inspection citations, current events, and trends relevant to services, quality, and training; empowering cross-functional teams to proactively evaluate and improve technical and/or non-technical quality management systems; networking and collaborating across internal teams locally to coordinate and align lab operations, quality, and utilization; maintaining and managing relationships with external vendors, local/state public health and safety organizations, and other health care providers; aligning with health care providers on community health concerns and referred testing; and evaluating alignment with local and national standards and regulations, and utilization of technology and initiatives.
• Ensures medical laboratory operations and improves processes by: ensuring efficient operations, quality, service, patient safety, member/customer satisfaction, and cost effectiveness through evaluation and standardization of technical and/or non-technical services and processes; overseeing innovative work plan processes to improve systems across the continuum of care; identifying new testing methodologies, processes, and technology that have the potential to improve service, quality, and/or efficiency; overseeing resolution of onsite facilities issues of varying complexity and developing long-term strategies for preventing such issues with internal and external vendors; supporting strategies with internal and external vendors; guiding and mentoring employees to cultivate teamwork and foster a progressive work environment; proactively monitoring personnel needs during periods of varying technical and/or non-technical work load; optimizing inventory and maintenance systems, ensuring efficient utilization of supplies inventory, and estimating usage and costs; and providing high level support for ongoing technical and/or non-technical project management, including local, regional, and national initiatives, status reports, and communication with key stakeholders.
• Manages service quality by: communicating applicable policies and procedures for audit and process improvement projects to teams; overseeing corrective actions, preventive actions, and process improvements based on internal and external quality audits of technical and/or non-technical processes; guiding and influencing plans for correcting deviations from expected quality control results; aligning teams on strategies used to ensure that tests are performed properly and results are verified before being shared; enacting procedures and protocols to ensure specimens are collected and processed according to established time and quality standards; driving the resolution of proficiency testing concerns; and leading the implementation of innovative strategies to resolve problems of varying complexity related to pre-analytical (collection, processing, etc.), analytical, or post-analytical testing, as applicable.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Minimum one (1) year of experience managing operational or project budgets.
• Minimum five (5) years of experience in a leadership role with or without direct reports in a healthcare related field.
• Bachelors degree in medical lab science or equivalent, or health care related field AND minimum eight (8) years of experience in medical technology, clinical laboratory sciences, or health care related field OR Minimum eleven (11) years of experience in medical technology, clinical laboratory sciences, or health care related field.

• Clinical Immunohematologist License (California) required at hire OR Clinical Toxicologist Scientist License (California) required at hire OR Clinical Hematologist Scientist License (California) required at hire OR Clinical Histocompatibility Scientist License (California) required at hire OR Clinical Reproductive Biologist Scientist License (California) required at hire OR Clinical Genetic Molecular Biologist Scientist License (California) required at hire OR Clinical Microbiologist Scientist License (California) required at hire OR Clinical Chemist Scientist License (California) required at hire OR Clinical Laboratory Scientist License (California) required at hire OR Clinical Cytogeneticist License (California) required at hire

Preferred Qualifications:

• Technical Supervisor Certification from the American Board of Bioanalysis.
• Medical Technologist Certification.