The University of Washington (UW) is proud to be one of the nation’s premier educational and research institutions. Our people are the most important asset in our pursuit of achieving excellence in education, research and community service. Our staff not only enjoys outstanding benefits and professional growth opportunities, but also an environment noted for diversity, community involvement, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits, and natural beauty.
The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) is a center of the University of Washington (UW) Department of Global Health (DGH), a division of the Schools of Medicine and Public Health. Formed in collaboration with its primary partner, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), I-TECH is focused on the mission of working with local partners to develop skilled health care workers and strong national health systems in resource-limited settings. Work is primarily supported through multiple federal awards, many of them targeting prevention, care, and treatment of HIV and other infectious diseases, with an annual budget that ranges between $50-85 million. I-TECH is headquartered at UW in Seattle and has offices in 11 of the 30 developing countries where it is invited to work by host governments. Approximately 600 staff work for I-TECH worldwide.
I-TECH has an outstanding opportunity for a full-time Senior Technical Advisor, Health Informatics. The Senior Technical Advisor provides leadership for the overall design, development and implementation of health information systems including standardized system architecture and software development for clinical and public health information systems across multiple country programs in a highly dynamic environment. The STA works directly with the Principal Investigator(s), other members of the HQ Informatics Team and respective country programs and projects to translate state-of-the-art innovations and best practices into I-TECH’s health informatics work. I-TECH promotes country ownership to sustain effective health information systems. The ability to bridge highly technical aspects of software development with the constraints of resource-limited settings to achieve successful implementation and integration of informatics into public health and clinical practice is an essential part of this position. Core elements of I-TECH’s portfolio in health informatics include: technical assistance on national eHealth architecture including electronic medical record systems, laboratory information systems, and training data collection systems and integration of such systems with mHealth approaches; implementing standards based interoperability to support effective reuse of health information; work with national unique patient identifiers; leading open source software development; training and curriculum development in health information systems for healthcare providers; and, strengthening both health informatics and IT capacity in countries with which I-TECH partners.
Duties and Responsibilities:
Technical Leadership and Strategy
- Advise senior staff (Principal Investigators, Country Directors, Senior Program Managers), donors, partners and other stakeholders on technical strategies and organizational models for health information system implementation and sustainability.
- Provide leadership and technical direction to shape I-TECH’s informatics portfolio including specific project components ranging from transitions to OpenMRS to large scale HIS deployments.
- Champion systems, methods and tools to promote data quality and data use to support desired clinical and public health outcomes.
- Advise on methods for data management and analysis, including methods for querying relational databases, data warehousing, online analytic processing, cloud database storage and security, and data mining techniques. *Champion use of health information systems to donors, I-TECH staff and in-country partners.
- Liaise between medical, program management staff and IT staff.
Systems Development and Implementation Technical Assistance
- Analyze complex health information system needs in order to envision, architect and lead strategy, development and implementation of technical solutions.
- Research and evaluate state-of-the-art project-specific technical strategies and approaches and recommend updates and changes to existing strategies and approaches as appropriate.
- Assess the functions, limitations, opportunities and challenges of information technology, including specific software products, in healthcare and public health settings.
- Evaluate and assure system compliance with laws and regulations applicable to managing patient information.
- Ensure consideration of the ethical issues that can arise during the delivery of healthcare using eHealth approaches and technologies.
- Implement systems, methods and tools for standardized informatics project management and documentation across I-TECH.
Capacity Building
- Support development of in-country capacity amongst I-TECH local staff and partners with respect to business analysis, software development, and health information system design and implementation.
- Assure integration of expertise from diverse disciplines contributing to health informatics including medicine, epidemiology, computer science, IT services, adult education/training, logistics and procurement.
Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Assistance
- Ensure identification of performance metrics for health information systems and design strategies for monitoring and reporting performance metrics.
- Promote and contribute to dissemination and publication related to I-TECH’s health informatics projects.
External Communication and Partnerships
- Cultivate I-TECH’s relationships with donors and external partner organizations (e.g. members of the OpenMRS community).
- Represent I-TECH and its health informatics projects at public forums including conferences, meetings, and media and award events.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Bachelor’s Degree in computer science, health informatics, public health or related field with at least 7 years’ experience, including two or more years in a leadership role, in computer science, information technology, information systems, health informatics, health information management, public health or related field;
- Experience with health information systems, electronic medical records (EMRs), and/or laboratory information management systems (LIMS) in resource limited settings;
- Familiarity with medical language and classification systems;
- Knowledge of web/internet standards, hardware and software technologies and relational database technologies;
- Demonstrated results-oriented competence in information systems project management;
- Ability to use systems thinking to holistically understand a situation and then follow through with conceptualization and architecting the overall solution;
- Demonstrated ability to bring together diverse professionals in a multisite organization into a functioning, effective team;
- Demonstrated ability to facilitate effective collaboration and build consensus with diverse partners;
- Strong communication abilities, including communication with both technical and non-technical audiences;
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.
Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.
DESIRED:
- Advanced degree (MA/MS, Phd, Dr.PH) in computer science, health informatics, public health or related field. Clinical degree (e.g. MD or RN) useful;
- Demonstrated skill in software design and development including the ability to program;
- Knowledge of global health issues;
- Experience living and/or working in resource-limited settings;
- Familiarity with principles and practices of open-source software products and communities;
- Knowledge of OpenMRS and experience in OpenMRS implementation;
- Experience with health systems strengthening in resource-limited settings;
- Proficiency in oral and written communication in French.
Condition of Employment:
- Work schedule may include early mornings or late evenings to accommodate the time zones in which I-TECH works. International travel to resource-limited settings is required, up to three weeks at a time. FTE may fluctuate between 50% - 100%, depending on the work requirements. As a UW employee, you will enjoy generous benefits and work/life programs. For detailed information on Benefits for this position, click here.
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS
To apply, please update your profile and complete the assessments online. This position is open until filled, with a preference given to applications received by April 17, 2016. This position is UW requisition number 131232.