Senior Director, Laboratory Operations Management

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 establishing strategies for aligning with quality assurance, safety, compliance, regulatory, and accreditation standards and activities.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Builds organizational capacity and prepares high potentials for growth opportunities and advancement; builds collaborative networks inside and outside the organization for self and others. Provides framework for soliciting and acting on performance feedback; drives collaboration to set goals and provide open feedback and coaching to foster performance improvement. Models and drives continuous learning and oversees the recruitment, selection, and development of talent; stays current with industry trends, benchmarks, and best practices; ensures performance management guidelines and expectations to achieve business needs. Acts as a thought leader on industry trends, benchmarks, and best practices; shares best practices within and across teams to drive improvement. Motivates and empowers teams; maintains a highly skilled and engaged workforce by aligning cross-functional resource plans with business objectives. Provides guidance when difficult decisions need to be made; creates opportunities for expanded scope of decision making and impact across teams.
• Oversees the operation of multiple units and/or departments by identifying member and operational needs; ensures the management of work assignment allocation and completion; translates business strategy into actionable business requirements; ensures products and/or services meet member requirements and expectations while aligning with organizational strategies. Engages strategic, cross-functional business units to champion and drive support for business plans and priorities; assumes responsibility for decision making; sets standards, measures progress, and ensures resolution of escalated issues. Sets and communicates goals and objectives; analyzes resources, costs, and forecasts and incorporates them into business plans; obtains and distributes resources. Anticipates and removes obstacles that impact performance; addresses performance gaps and implements contingency plans accordingly; ensures teams accomplish business objectives; serves as a subject-matter expert and trusted source to executive leadership; provides influence and consultation in the development of the larger organizational or business strategy.
• Maintains testing and training standards by: championing the departments strategic initiatives and their advancement through the development and implementation of comprehensive technical and/or non-technical training materials while also overseeing standards for training and/or training resources; establishing the organizations competency standards for personnel; and ensuring current and future training needs are met, developing comprehensive plans for regular, in-service, and competency training programs, and completing own training.
• Maintains compliance and accreditation by: overseeing a comprehensive framework of policies and work instructions to drive alignment with applicable regulations, license requirements, accreditation standards, and inspection checklists pertaining to laboratories and facilities where testing is performed; establishing and implementing standards to evaluate adherence to all requirements related to the recruitment, processing, testing, storage, and distribution of materials and samples; championing innovative corrective and preventive actions for addressing technical and/or non-technical deficiencies in regulatory/accreditation inspection processes; communicating the importance of timely renewal of all applicable licenses; and setting standards for updating technical and/or non-technical documentation across the department.
• Serves as a link between medical laboratory services and other services by: guiding the organizations response to regulatory/accreditation changes and issues, inspection citations, current events, and trends relevant to services, quality, and training; providing strategic guidance and direction to cross-functional teams on evaluating and improving technical and/or non-technical quality management systems; championing strategies for networking and collaborating across internal teams locally and nationally to coordinate and align lab operations, quality, and utilization; initiating and managing strategic relationships with stakeholders/senior leadership at external vendors, local/state/national public health and safety organizations, and other health care providers; overseeing efforts to align with health care providers on community health concerns and referred testing; and developing and communicating strategic expectations for alignment with local and national standards and regulations, and utilization of technology and initiatives.
• Ensures medical laboratory operations and improves processes by: overseeing and enhancing strategies and 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; ensuring innovative work plan process deployment to improve systems across the continuum of care; championing new testing methodologies, processes, and technology that have the potential to improve service, quality, and/or efficiency; ensuring resolution of onsite facilities issues of varying complexity and establishing strategies for resolving such issues with internal and external vendors; establishing strategies with internal and external vendors; ensuring organizational efforts to cultivate teams and promote a progressive work environment; driving strategic priorities for personnel needs during periods of varying technical and/or non-technical work load, as applicable; ensuring comprehensive inventory and maintenance systems, driving efficient utilization of supplies inventory, and conducting strategic analyses to estimate short-term and long-term usage and costs; and ensuring appropriate communication and support for ongoing technical and/or non-technical project management, including local, regional, and national initiatives, status reports, and periodic progress reviews.
• Manages service quality by: aligning applicable policies and procedures for audit and process improvement projects with overall organizational strategy; evaluating the effectiveness of corrective actions, preventive actions, and process improvements based on internal and external quality audits of technical and/or non-technical processes; formulating and driving plans for correcting deviations from expected quality control results; developing and overseeing comprehensive strategies to ensure that tests are performed properly and results are verified before being shared; promoting adherence to procedures and protocols to ensure specimens are collected and processed according to established time and quality standards; providing expert guidance to resolve proficiency testing concerns; and overseeing the application of innovative strategies to resolve problems of varying complexity related to pre-analytical (collection, processing, etc.), analytical, or post-analytical testing, as applicable.