Director, Laboratory Operations Management

Kaiser Permanente; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles, CA is seeking a Laboratory Operations Leader to direct day-to-day clinical laboratory activities, ensure timely reporting, and maintain compliance across multiple units. You will guide talent, manage staffing, and drive performance through coaching and strategic planning.

The role emphasizes regulatory adherence, quality assurance, and collaboration with cross-functional teams to align laboratory services with organizational goals and safety standards.

Qualifications

• Two or more years of experience managing operational or project budgets.
• Three or more years in a leadership role with direct reports in a healthcare-related field.
• Bachelor’s degree in medical lab science or equivalent, or health care related field with extensive experience in medical technology or clinical lab sciences.

Responsibilities

• Prepare individuals for growth opportunities and build internal networks; provide feedback and coaching to improve performance.
• Oversee operations of multiple units, allocate resources, and ensure alignment with business plans and standards.
• Maintain testing and training standards; develop training materials and competency programs for staff.
• Ensure compliance and accreditation by adhering to regulations, licenses, and inspection checklists; drive corrective actions.
• Link medical lab services with other services; collaborate with leadership to align lab operations with national standards.
• Improve processes by defining efficient operations, adopting new testing methodologies, and coordinating with vendors.

Skills

Budget management

Leadership

Performance management

Talent development

Education

Bachelor's degree in medical lab science or 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; directing 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 directing quality assurance, safety, compliance, regulatory, and accreditation standards and activities.

Essential Responsibilities

• Prepares individuals for growth opportunities and advancement; builds internal collaborative networks for self and others. Solicits and acts on performance feedback; drives collaboration to set goals and provide open feedback and coaching to foster performance improvement. Demonstrates continuous learning; oversees the recruitment, selection, and development of talent; ensures performance management guidelines and expectations to achieve business needs. Stays up to date with organizational best practices, processes, benchmarks, and industry trends; shares best practices within and across teams. Motivates and empowers teams; maintains a highly skilled and engaged workforce by aligning resource plans with business objectives. Provides guidance when difficult decisions need to be made; creates opportunities for expanded scope of decision making and impact.
• Oversees the operation of multiple units within a department by identifying member and operational needs; ensures the management of work assignment completion; translates business strategy into actionable business requirements; ensures products and/or services meet member requirements and expectations while aligning with organizational strategies. Gains cross-functional support for business plans and priorities; assumes responsibility for decision making; sets standards, measures progress, and fosters resolution of escalated issues. Communicates goals and objectives; analyzes resources, costs, and forecasts and incorporates them into business plans; prioritizes and distributes resources. Removes obstacles that impact performance; guides performance and develops contingency plans accordingly; ensures teams accomplish business objectives.
• Maintains testing and training standards by: promoting the departments strategic initiatives and how it can be advanced through the development and implementation of technical and/or non-technical training materials while also establishing standards for training and/or training resources; defining the competency standards required of relevant personnel; and scoping current and future training needs, strategizing how to address needs through regular, in-service, and competency training programs, and completing own training.
• Maintains compliance and accreditation by: defining policies and work instructions, ensuring they are in alignment with applicable regulations, license requirements, accreditation standards, and inspection checklists pertaining to laboratories and facilities where testing is performed; overseeing 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; ensuring timely renewal of all applicable licenses; and communicating the need for technical and/or non-technical documentation updates across teams.
• Serves as a link between medical laboratory services and other services by: influencing changes to current practices in response to regulatory/accreditation changes and issues, inspection citations, current events, and trends relevant to services, quality, and training; advising cross-functional teams to proactively evaluate and improve technical and/or non-technical quality management systems; networking and collaborating across leadership teams locally and nationally to coordinate and align lab operations, quality, and utilization; initiating and managing strategic relationships with external vendors, local/state/national public health and safety organizations, and other health care providers; providing expert advice to align with health care providers on community health concerns and referred testing; and setting expectations for alignment with local and national standards and regulations, and utilization of technology and initiatives.
• Ensures medical laboratory operations and improves processes by: developing strategies and defining 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; developing and championing innovative work plan processes to improve systems across the continuum of care and overseeing process deployment; introducing and advocating for new testing methodologies, processes, and technology that have the potential to improve service, quality, and/or efficiency; strategizing resolution of onsite facilities issues of varying complexity and establishing strategies for resolving such issues with internal and external vendors; developing strategies with internal and external vendors; coordinating organizational efforts to cultivate teamwork and promote a progressive work environment; forecasting future personnel needs during periods of varying technical and/or non-technical work load; establishing inventory and maintenance systems, ensuring the utilization of supplies inventory, and estimating short-term and long-term usage and costs; and initiating approaches for ongoing technical and/or non-technical project management, including local, regional, and national initiatives, status reports, monitoring of timeline progress, and communication with key stakeholders.
• Manages service quality by: championing applicable policies and procedures for audit and process improvement projects; approving corrective actions, preventive actions, and process improvements based on internal and external quality audits of technical and/or non-technical processes; recommending innovative plans for correcting deviations from expected quality control results; initiating strategies for ensuring that tests are performed properly and results are verified before being shared; establishing procedures and protocols to ensure specimens are collected and processed according to established time and quality standards; advising on the resolution of proficiency testing concerns; and developing strategies to resolve problems of varying complexity related to pre-analytical (collection, processing, etc.), analytical, or post-analytical testing, as applicable.

Minimum Qualifications

• Minimum two (2) years of experience managing operational or project budgets.
• Minimum three (3) years of experience in a leadership role with direct reports in a healthcare related field.
• Bachelors degree in medical lab science or equivalent, or health care related field AND minimum ten (10) years of experience in medical technology, clinical laboratory sciences, or health care related field OR Minimum thirteen (13) years of experience in medical technology, clinical laboratory sciences, or health care related field.

Preferred Qualifications

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