Technical & Interoperability Lead

Illinois Public Health Institute; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 83,000 - 107,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health plans

Dental plan

Vision plan

Disability insurance

Life insurance

401(k) with match

PTO

Parental leave

Employee Assistance Program

15 paid holidays

Job summary

Illinois Public Health Institute seeks a Technical & Interoperability Lead to guide the CIE’s day-to-day technology, interoperability planning, and enterprise architecture alignment. You will coordinate with the Managing Director, CIO, and various partners to ensure secure, scalable data exchange and ongoing technical governance.

This is a full-time, exempt role with a 37.5-hour work week in a hybrid Chicago office environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Health Informatics, or a related field; master’s degree preferred.
• Five+ years in health information technology, interoperability, or related leadership.
• Knowledge of interoperability standards including HL7, FHIR, APIs, and system integration.
• Experience guiding complex multi-system implementations and vendor coordination.
• Strong analytical, facilitation, documentation, communication, and relationship-management skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead interoperability strategy and technical governance for secure data exchange.
• Guide enterprise architecture and system integration across partners and vendors.
• Provide technical leadership for implementations, testing, and go-live activities.
• Coordinate with privacy, security, legal, and organizational leaders on technical decisions.
• Maintain technical documentation, integration guidance, and reference materials.

Skills

Analytical

Facilitation

Documentation

Communication

Decision-making

Problem-solving

Relationship-management

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Master’s degree preferred

Tools

HL7

FHIR

APIs

Master Patient Index

Identity management

Consent management

Access controls

Systems integration

Job description

JOB SUMMARY

The Technical & Interoperability Lead provides senior leadership for the CIE’s day‑to‑day technology and interoperability activities. This position guides technical implementation, systems integration, interoperability planning, technical governance, vendor coordination, enterprise architecture alignment, and continuous improvement of the CIE’s technology environment. Working closely with the CIE Managing Director, Virtual Chief Information Officer, Solution Architect, Privacy & Security Officer, Technical Implementation Project Manager, Data Steward, consultants, vendors, and partner organizations, the Technical & Interoperability Lead translates organizational priorities into coordinated technical execution. The position serves as the CIE’s primary internal technical resource, ensuring technical decisions, implementation activities, vendor deliverables, system integrations, and interoperability capabilities remain secure, scalable, sustainable, and aligned with organizational priorities. This role provides the internal technical judgment and continuity necessary to guide system integrations, interoperability standards, technical governance, vendor coordination, and implementation readiness while preserving institutional knowledge within the CIE. This position is full‑time, exempt, and reports to the CIE Managing Director. IPHI’s standard work week is 37.5 hours

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Technology and Interoperability Planning

• Translate the CIE’s organizational strategy into technical and interoperability priorities.
• Develop and maintain Technology and Interoperability work plans in alignment with organizational goals, implementation requirements, partner needs, and funder expectations.
• Support development and maintenance of the CIE’s long-term technology roadmap.
• Establish technical implementation priorities across systems, integrations, vendors, consultants, and partner initiatives.
• Identify emerging technical needs, risks, dependencies, and opportunities requiring organizational action.
• Recommend technical approaches that support scalability, sustainability, interoperability, privacy, security, and partner adoption.

Interoperability Strategy and Standards

• Lead day‑to‑day execution of the CIE’s interoperability strategy.
• Establish implementation guidance for secure, scalable, and sustainable data exchange.
• Guide the application of interoperability standards and capabilities, including HL7, FHIR, APIs, Master Patient Index, identity management, consent management, access controls, and system integration.
• Monitor developments in healthcare, public health, human services, and cross‑sector interoperability and recommend appropriate organizational responses.
• Ensure technical solutions support secure information exchange across healthcare, public health, human services, government, managed care, and community‑based organizations.
• Maintain interoperability standards, technical guidance, integration documentation, and related technical reference materials.

Enterprise Architecture and Systems Integration

• Guide technical planning for integrations with electronic health records, health information systems, HMIS platforms, 211 systems, managed care organizations, public health systems, and other partner technologies.
• Work closely with the Solution Architect to ensure technical designs align with organizational strategy, partner workflows, scalability needs, privacy and security requirements, and interoperability standards.
• Review proposed technical designs, integration approaches, system changes, and vendor recommendations.
• Coordinate architectural decisions across vendors, consultants, implementation partners, and internal CIE functions.
• Maintain technical documentation, system inventories, integration guidance, architectural records, and technical decision documentation.
• Support continuity and long‑term sustainability of the CIE’s technical environment.

Technical Implementation Leadership

• Provide technical direction for system implementations, integrations, testing, deployment, go‑live activities, stabilization, and transition into ongoing operations.
• Supervise and guide the Project Manager – CIE Implementation, including providing technical direction, reviewing implementation priorities, and supporting project delivery.
• Establish implementation priorities, technical decision points, escalation pathways, readiness criteria, and technical dependencies.
• Review implementation plans, testing approaches, user acceptance testing processes, cutover plans, issue logs, and technical risk mitigation strategies.
• Resolve technical barriers affecting implementation progress, vendor delivery, partner onboarding, system readiness, and long‑term platform operations.
• Ensure technical implementation activities remain aligned with approved architecture, interoperability standards, privacy and security requirements, partner workflows, and organizational priorities.
• Support transition from implementation into stable technical operations, ongoing system improvement, and sustainable internal technology and interoperability capacity.

Technical Governance and Decision Support

• Develop and maintain technical governance processes, standards, decision‑making documentation, and review pathways for technical changes.
• Establish review processes for new integrations, system changes, technology investments, enhancement requests, and vendor recommendations.
• Evaluate technical options and tradeoffs related to cost, risk, feasibility, scalability, sustainability, privacy, security, consent, partner impact, and operational burden.
• Prepare technical recommendations and decision‑support materials for the CIE Managing Director, organizational leadership, governance bodies, funders, and other stakeholders as needed.
• Identify technical matters requiring input from the Virtual Chief Information Officer, Solution Architect, Privacy & Security Officer, legal counsel, vendors, consultants, or other subject matter experts.
• Ensure significant technical decisions are documented, communicated to affected teams, and aligned with the CIE’s established governance processes.

Vendor and Technical Partner Management

• Serve as the primary internal technical liaison with technology vendors, implementation partners, consultants, and external technical stakeholders.
• Coordinate technical activities across multiple vendors, consultants, implementation partners, and internal workstreams.
• Review technical scopes, deliverables, implementation plans, architectural recommendations, technical documentation, and performance concerns.
• Monitor vendor delivery from a technical, interoperability, implementation, and quality perspective.
• Clarify technical expectations, dependencies, responsibilities, timelines, decision points, and escalation needs.
• Recommend corrective actions or adjustments when technical performance, quality, timelines, scope alignment, or vendor delivery require improvement.
• Preserve organizational ownership of technical priorities and decisions while leveraging external expertise for specialized technical support and delivery.

Privacy, Security, and Technical Risk Coordination

• Partner with the Privacy & Security Officer to ensure technical solutions support privacy, security, consent, compliance, access‑control, audit, and data‑governance requirements.
• Identify technical, infrastructure, interoperability, integration, vendor, configuration, and system sustainability risks.
• Develop, document, and monitor technical mitigation strategies in partnership with relevant internal and external stakeholders.
• Support incident response, business continuity, disaster recovery, technology sustainability planning, and technical readiness activities.
• Ensure security, privacy, consent, and access requirements are incorporated into technical planning, implementation, testing, deployment, and system change processes.
• Coordinate technical responses to audit findings, access concerns, system vulnerabilities, configuration issues, compliance needs, and related technical risks.

Cross‑Functional Coordination

• Coordinate Technology and Interoperability activities with Privacy and Security, Data Stewardship, Training and Education, Community Engagement, Partner Success, Operations, vendors, consultants, and organizational leadership.
• Translate technical concepts, risks, tradeoffs, and recommendations into clear language for technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Ensure partner workflows, organizational requirements, governance decisions, and user needs are reflected in technical planning and implementation.
• Support Training and Education in developing materials related to systems, workflows, integrations, testing, technical readiness, and system changes.
• Partner with Community Engagement and Partner Success to address technical requirements affecting onboarding, adoption, utilization, workflow integration, and long‑term participation.
• Facilitate alignment between technical capabilities and organizational needs across the CIE.

Innovation and Continuous Improvement

• Evaluate emerging technologies and interoperability capabilities relevant to the CIE’s mission, strategy, and long‑term sustainability.
• Identify opportunities to improve system performance, automation, analytics infrastructure, workflow efficiency, partner experience, data quality, and technical operations.
• Lead technical continuous‑improvement initiatives in alignment with organizational priorities and governance processes.
• Recommend tools, standards, processes, and system enhancements that strengthen the CIE’s technology environment.
• Capture lessons learned from implementations and incorporate them into future technical planning, vendor coordination, governance, and internal capacity‑building.

Other duties as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Health Informatics, Information Technology, Engineering, Healthcare Administration, Public Health Informatics, Public Health, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and directly related experience is required. Master’s degree preferred.
• Five or more years of progressively responsible experience in health information technology, interoperability, systems integration, enterprise technology implementation, technical program leadership, or related work.
• Demonstrated knowledge of interoperability standards and technologies, including HL7, FHIR, APIs, Master Patient Index, identity management, consent management, access controls, and systems integration.
• Experience guiding complex technical implementations involving multiple systems, organizations, vendors, consultants, and stakeholders.
• Experience evaluating technical designs, integration approaches, vendor recommendations, system changes, implementation risks, and technical tradeoffs.
• Experience coordinating work across technical and nontechnical teams and translating technical concepts for diverse audiences.
• Experience supervising staff or directing the work of project managers, consultants, vendors, technical specialists, or cross‑functional implementation teams.
• Strong analytical, facilitation, documentation, communication, decision‑making, problem‑solving, and relationship‑management skills.
• Ability to evaluate technical options and tradeoffs related to cost, risk, feasibility, scalability, sustainability, privacy, security, consent, partner impact, and operational burden.
• Ability to establish priorities, guide implementation, maintain technical documentation, support vendor accountability, and recognize when decisions require input from specialized technical, privacy, security, legal, or organizational leaders.
• Experience supporting healthcare, public health, health information exchange, Medicaid, nonprofit, government, community‑based, or other complex cross‑sector environments is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with cloud environments, cybersecurity frameworks, technical governance, TEFCA, health data exchange, electronic health records, HMIS, 211 systems, and modern interoperability platforms is preferred.
• Demonstrated commitment to collaboration, continuous improvement, health equity, secure information exchange, community‑centered systems change, and high‑quality implementation.

JOB REQUIREMENTS

• Must be able to sit at and operate a computer and other office equipment for a significant portion of the workday.
• Must be able to move about the office and at off‑site events to access files and supplies and assist with event setup.
• The position requires occasional work in the evenings or weekends and must be able to travel for one or more nights from time to time.
• The position requires frequent communication with internal and external partners about program activities. Must be able to exchange accurate information in these situations.

Compensation: This position offers a salary range of $83,400 - $107,291 per year, depending on experience and qualifications.
Benefits: IPHI offers competitive benefits, including multiple health plan options, dental, vision, employer‑paid disability and life insurance, flexible spending accounts, and a 401(k) with employer matching. Employees also receive PTO, paid parental leave, and an Employee Assistance Program, 15 paid holidays, including a week off in December.
Location: This position is located in Chicago. IPHI operates a hybrid office work model where team members work in the office two days per week (Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday), and individuals may work in the office or remotely the other three days per week. There is travel for meetings and site visits within Chicago, the suburbs, and Illinois. Occasional overnight travel within Illinois or nationally for conferences and training may be required.
Starting Date: Immediate.