Nontraditional healthcare job I wish I knew sooner

Hey Health Techies!

I’ve been getting so much kind feedback on this series of nontraditional job titles, so we’re going to keep it going!

Last week I covered project management, and this week?

The all important Clinical Operations Manager.

🤷🏻‍♀️ What is a clinical operations manager?

• Just as it sounds, a clinical operations manager ensures the successful running of the clinical operation within an organization. Their focus is on clinical workflows, compliance, and patient outcomes.

• In health tech this can pose an interesting challenge, as many teams are working remotely in a telehealth capacity. This makes tracking the right metrics that much more important in tracking performance, patient satisfaction, and areas for improvement.

👨🏽‍⚕️ Why do clinicians make excellent project managers?

• Well, it has clinical in the name!

• Clinicians are particularly close to the workflows in a healthcare operation, having done the work themselves, which may be important in building trust with care teams. They know the processes, the documentation needs, and often the regulatory requirements making healthcare operations particularly complex.

• In addition, they are highly attuned to some of the misaligned incentives that exist in healthcare that may cause friction within an organization.

📝 What does the day to day look like?

• Attend meetings with cross-functional leadership to provide updates and discuss strategic planning.

• Review daily reports on patient encounters, clinician productivity, and other operational metrics.

• Support long-term initiatives related to workforce management, selection and building of new tools, and process improvement projects.

• Handle tasks related to budgeting, financial planning, and resource allocation for the clinical team.

• Advocate for the needs of the team to ensure staffing, training, and development needs are met.

• Address any staff concerns or conflicts as they come up.

Many of these skills are things that clinicians are already doing, if not day to day then on a regular basis, which makes the transition into a role like this a pretty-straightforward one. That’s one of the reasons that I recommend it frequently for people in the Hey Health Tech community 😀

📰 Weekly Wrap-up

• Guidehealth, a company focused on using technology to scale value-based care, raises $14 million seed round

• Epic makes it easier for patiens to access their own health records

• The FDA to hold the inaugural Digital Health Advisory Committee later this year

👀 Don’t miss these open roles

• Operations Manager, Process Innovation - Alma Health

• Clinical Operations Business Analyst - Included Health

• Operations Business Analyst - Hims & Hers

• and more!

Until next time,

Lauren