Director of Daily Operations and Customer Applications

VITL; Williston (ND); Remote; USD 150,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

VITL, a leading health information exchange, seeks a Director of Daily Operations and Customer Applications. You will guide the operational backbone and customer-facing applications, ensuring reliability and interoperability across HL7 and FHIR standards.

The role reports to the CEO and leads a team responsible for deployment, monitoring, and performance metrics, while partnering with executives to advance the strategic roadmap.

Qualifications

• Seven+ years of IT experience in healthcare or similar scale industries.
• Experience implementing HL7/FHIR interfaces and data integrations.
• Strong understanding of data services management and budget administration.

Responsibilities

• Oversee Daily Operations and Customer Applications teams and ensure service delivery to stakeholders.
• Align projects with strategic goals and customer needs.
• Maintain VHIE technical architecture and data integrity across platforms.
• Mentor staff and manage performance, capacity, and incident management.

Skills

IT leadership

Health IT

Stakeholder management

Operations management

Project governance

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Information Technology

ITIL Foundations certification

Tools

HL7 interfaces

AWS

Azure

SQL databases

Rhapsody

Health Catalyst

Job description

Reporting to the CEO, the Director of Daily Operations and Customer Applications is a member of VITL's senior leadership team and collaborates to successfully deliver VITL's mission, vision, strategic plan, and contractual commitments. The Director of Daily Operations and Customer Applications contributes to VITL's standing as a leading health information exchange (HIE) and serve as a valued thought partner to the CEO and the senior leadership team; preparing for and ensuring the seamless implementation of technology enhancements and solutions (e.g. new integrations, application version updates, new service deployments, etc.) and ensuring VITL services are meeting the established standards of utility and warranty, delivering value promised to stakeholders.
The Director of Daily Operations and Customer Applications has expert knowledge in the principles, policies and practices of data services management and operations, policy development and implementation, and budget development and administration. The Director of Daily Operations and Customer Applications possesses a broad knowledge of exchange standards and initiatives that advance health data interoperability and is responsible for staying ahead of health information technology innovation; designing and implementing short- and long-term operations strategy; mentoring and managing the operations team ensuring the integrity and on-going stability of the network, and applications that enable VITL services.
The individual must understand the health information technology environment and will proactively monitor and evaluate changes and opportunities in the interoperability landscape to help define VITL's strategic roadmap and priorities. The position will have significant experience in collaborating with and educating key stakeholders to help shape interoperability initiatives in Vermont.
The Director will be comfortable representing health information exchange to stakeholders, including the Legislature, state agencies, and state-designated boards. The Director may represent VITL on State committees and subcommittees as needed and work closely with stakeholders as required such as DVHA, Blueprint, VDH, and other external organizations.
The Director of Daily Operations and Customer Applications will work to understand the needs of clients and the technical solutions available, applying industry best practices and standards. The role ensures that operations activities and initiatives are aligned with VITL business strategy and priorities. The Director of Daily Operations and Customer Applications assists in technical architecture decisions of the VHIE to ensure functionality and integrity of the system is maintained.
The Director of Daily Operations and Customer Applications exercises responsibilities and skills at SFIA level 5 (Skills Framework for the Information Age).

Principal Responsibilities

Independent judgment and initiative are important and valued but must never result in operational silos or sub-optimization within the organization. Frequent communication with other VITL leaders is essential to ensure that the leadership team is united in expectations and execution.
The ideal candidate will be prepared to step outside of traditional job boundaries to meet the needs of the moment in support of VITL's mission and therefore must be flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances. A strong work ethic and ability to work well within a team are essential. The ideal candidate must have strong computer skills and excellent verbal and written communication skills, be exceedingly well organized, attentive to detail, flexible, proactive, resourceful and efficient, and must remain poised and composed under pressure and maintain utmost confidentiality and professionalism in handling protected health information and information which is proprietary and confidential to VITL's suppliers and technology partners. VITL seeks candidates who are committed to lifelong learning and growth.

With principal offices located in Williston, Vermont, VITL is a remote-first organization.

Responsibilities of this position include:

• In managing the Daily Operations and Customer Applications team, oversee all operations and maintenance activities, including day-to-day operation activities associated with enabling and delivering services to VITL stakeholders.

• Provide consultative resources to ensure operational solutions align with the stated business problems that are intended to be addressed.

• Obtain and maintain a broad understanding of the currently applied technologies, data models, application functionality, development processes, and project management tools for all VITL Services (e.g. HL7 versions 2.x, 3.x , HL7 FHIR STU 3 and version 4, Cloud Technologies (Primarily AWS and Azure), SQL/Related databases, , Various Internet Protocols (TCP/IP, SFTP, HTTPS/TLS/SSL, SSH, various VPNs)).

• Ensuring a focus on providing excellent customer service for all internal and external customers.

• Partnering with the leadership team to ensure that projects and initiatives are aligned to strategic goals and customer needs, allocating team resources accordingly.

• Building and maintaining relationships with coworkers, clients and stakeholders

• In collaboration with the Director of Network and Technology Solutions, Project Management, Client Services and other teams, plan and execute the production deployment providing technical expertise as needed to ensure a smooth transition.

• Provide oversight of HL7 interface implementations and data integrations

• Develop and maintain the VHIE Connectivity Criteria as part of the overall Vermont HIE Strategic Plan.

• Contribute to VHIE performance metrics, and assist Leadership in defining and generating reports as necessary

• Develop relationships with clients in conjunction with Leadership to document VITL IT roadmap

• Develop and maintain peer relationships with successful HIEs, ACOs, and hospitals nationally to share, assess and implement best practices.

• Lead in the maintenance and enhancement of the technology infrastructure of the VHIE and maintain human resource capabilities that encourage employee satisfaction, engagement, retention, and diversity:

• Automated Service and Systems monitoring.

• Periodic data quality audits for all data received by VITL.

• Incident resolution monitoring and metrics.

• Serve as the leader of VITL's Operations team

• Assist the VITL leadership team in defining and implementing automated, metrics-focused, and proactive methods for monitoring all aspects of the service lifecycle and service delivery with an initial focus on service operations.

• Mentor VITL team members and other healthcare community members to support VITL and VITL's services as appropriate.

• Enable monitoring activities and key metrics constituting VITL's configuration management approach, ensuring capacity of key components of VITL's infrastructure are not over capacitated, working closely with the director of Security, Risk and Resilience;

• As it pertains to demand and capacity management, make certain that the growth of the network is coordinated with the growth of network components to ensure VITL's services are not negatively impacted as VITL's business grows (for the sake of clarity the actual enhancement of components would most likely be executed by a supplier, VITL technology team or some other entity);

• Oversee VITL's reporting function to ensure compliance with contract deliverables and support VITL's need for data to effectively run the business and plan for near and long-term needs of the business;

• Enable a professional and customer-oriented approach to incident and request management supporting customers of VITL's core services, including but not limited to:

• VITLAccess, the online portal for accessing longitudinal health records;

• VITLResults, VITL's Results Delivery systems based on Health Catalyst and Rhapsody Integration engine;

• VITLAlerts, Care Coordination (events, clinical values and clinical results)

• VITLInsights, Data Analytics and Extracts

• Oversee general and administrative activities to ensure effective and efficient operations

• Actively participate in and support ongoing strategic planning efforts.

• Develop and manage activities that are aligned to and in support of VITL's strategic plan.

• Attend and support meetings of the Board of Directors and appropriate board committees.

• Maintain and ensure compliance with procurement policies and practices that enable good stewardship of organizational resources and encourage diversity of suppliers.

• Demonstrate and model a strong customer service commitment, internally and externally.

• Manage, support, and ensure ongoing development of all direct reports and team members.

• Regularly identify and implement opportunities to improve department and organization efficiency and effectiveness.

• Other duties as assigned.

Supervision Received

• The position reports to the Chief Executive Officer

Supervision Exercised

• Position supervises members of the Operations team (4).

• Take ownership of VITL operations initiatives, coordinate resource assignments with the team and guide initiatives through to successful completion.

• Guide large cross team efforts through influence and leadership.

• Coach and educate other team members in operational best practices and how this enables excellence in the delivery of VITL services and generating value for VITL stakeholders.

Job Impact

• Work performed in this position impacts thousands of users of the VITL network across the entire state of Vermont and into bordering states.

• Timeline of work assigned is usually weeks to months, and special projects may be assigned with a timeline of 7 to 12 months to completion.

• This position will help define technical budgets for hardware and software needed to implement new capabilities.

Key Competencies

The following are the minimal knowledge, skills and abilities which the Director of Daily Operations and Customer Applications must possess:

• Understanding of the fundamentals of IT systems, networks and operations is required.

• Understanding of project management concepts and practices. Knowledge of ITIL best practices is a plus.

• Knowledge of common system development methodologies and lifecycles is required.

• Understanding of the intricacies involved in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), HL7, FHIR and HIT standards.

• Demonstrated skill in technical communications to a diverse group of stakeholders.

• Effective communication skills to negotiate solutions and alternatives.

• Ability to define problems, draw conclusions and recommend solutions.

• Ability to mediate among stakeholder groups and individuals to resolve conflicts and disagreements.

• Ability to focus and manage time in a fast-paced and deadline-driven environment.

• Possess a general understanding of healthcare workflow dynamics and how they relate to utilization of VITL services.

• The successful candidate must be organized, detail-oriented, flexible and comfortable working in a dynamic environment.

Qualifications

• At least seven years of experience in information technology within the healthcare industry or other industries of similar size and complexity.

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or information technology is preferred; Equivalent work experience will be considered.

• VITL expects employees to be certified in ITIL Foundations or commit to becoming certified within the first year of employment. This is a condition of employment.

VITL is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination or harassment of any kind. We are committed to compliance with all applicable fair employment practices laws and a policy of equal opportunity without regard to race, gender, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, place of birth, crime victim status, ancestry, physical or mental condition, disability, pregnancy, citizenship or immigration status, status as a veteran, military service or obligation, a positive test result from an HIV-related blood test, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by such laws ("Protected Characteristics"). VITL's policy of anti-discrimination applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including but not limited to recruiting, hiring, training, compensation, benefits, advancement, and termination of employment. VITL prohibits and does not tolerate discrimination against any employee, applicant, worker, or service provider on the basis of any Protected Characteristic.

Salary Range

The approved salary range for this fully benefited position is 150-170K annually, based on experience.