Senior Director, Laboratory Operations Management

Senior Director, Laboratory Operations Management

Location: Atlanta, Georgia, United States | Job Type: Permanent

Job Summary

This position is responsible for ensuring timely and accurate laboratory reporting and directing the day-to-day operations of the clinical laboratory within a labor-management partnership environment. Responsibilities include overseeing credentialed and non-credentialed personnel, maintaining competency in laboratory testing, performing bench work as appropriate, and establishing strategies aligned with quality assurance, safety, compliance, regulatory, and accreditation standards and activities.

Essential Responsibilities

Organizational Development and Talent Management

• Build organizational capacity and prepare high-potential employees for growth opportunities.
• Develop collaborative networks inside and outside the organization.
• Establish a framework for soliciting and acting on performance feedback; drive collaboration on goal setting and performance improvement through feedback and coaching.
• Model and drive continuous learning; oversee talent recruitment, selection, and development.
• Stay current with industry trends, benchmarks, and best practices.
• Ensure performance management guidelines meet business needs.
• Share industry insights and best practices across teams.
• Motivate and empower teams, maintaining a skilled and engaged workforce by aligning resource plans with business objectives.
• Guide difficult decisions and create opportunities for expanded decision-making.

Operations Oversight and Strategic Alignment

• Oversee multiple units or departments, identifying member and operational needs.
• Manage work allocation and completion.
• Translate business strategy into actionable requirements.
• Ensure products and services meet member requirements and expectations while aligning with organizational strategies.
• Engage strategic, cross-functional business units to advance business plans and priorities.
• Make decisions, set standards, measure progress, and resolve escalated issues.
• Set and communicate goals and objectives; analyze resources, costs, and forecasts for business plans.
• Anticipate and remove obstacles to performance, address performance gaps, and implement contingency plans.
• Ensure teams meet business objectives and serve as a subject-matter expert and trusted resource to executive leadership.
• Influence and advise on broader organizational and business strategy.

Testing and Training Standards

• Advance strategic initiatives by developing and implementing technical and/or non-technical training materials.
• Oversee training standards and resources.
• Establish competency standards for personnel.
• Ensure current and future training needs are met through comprehensive in-service and competency training plans.
• Complete required training.

Compliance and Accreditation

• Oversee policies and work instructions to ensure alignment with regulations, licensing requirements, accreditation standards, and laboratory inspection checklists.
• Establish and implement standards for adherence to requirements covering recruitment, processing, testing, storage, and distribution of materials and samples.
• Lead corrective and preventive actions for regulatory or accreditation deficiencies.
• Communicate the importance of timely renewal of applicable licenses.
• Set standards for updating technical and non-technical documentation.

Inter-Service Liaison and Strategic Relationships

• Guide the organization's response to regulatory and accreditation changes, inspection citations, and relevant trends.
• Advise cross-functional teams on evaluating and improving quality management systems.
• Promote collaboration across internal teams to align laboratory operations, quality, and utilization.
• Initiate and manage strategic relationships with external stakeholders, including vendors, public health organizations, and other healthcare providers.
• Oversee alignment with healthcare providers on community health concerns and referred testing.
• Develop and communicate strategic expectations for alignment with local and national standards, regulations, and technology use.

Medical Laboratory Operations and Process Improvement

• Oversee and improve strategies for operational efficiency, quality, service, patient safety, member and customer satisfaction, and cost-effectiveness.
• Ensure deployment of work-plan processes to improve systems across the continuum of care.
• Promote new testing methodologies, processes, and technology.
• Ensure onsite facilities issues are resolved and establish strategies for addressing them with internal and external vendors.
• Establish strategies with internal and external vendors.
• Set strategic priorities for staffing needs across varying workloads.
• Oversee inventory and maintenance systems, promote efficient use of supplies, and analyze usage and costs.
• Ensure appropriate communication and support for project management, including status reports and progress reviews.

Service Quality Management

• Align policies and procedures for audits and process improvement projects with organizational strategy.
• Evaluate corrective actions, preventive actions, and process improvements based on quality audits.
• Develop and lead plans to correct deviations from expected quality control results.
• Develop and oversee strategies to ensure tests are performed properly and results are verified.
• Promote adherence to specimen collection and processing procedures and protocols.
• Provide expert guidance to resolve proficiency testing concerns.
• Oversee strategies for resolving pre-analytical, analytical, and post-analytical testing problems.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• At least four years of experience managing operational or project budgets.
• At least five years of leadership experience with direct reports in a healthcare-related field.
• A bachelor's degree in medical laboratory science, an equivalent qualification, or a healthcare-related field, and at least 12 years of experience in medical technology, clinical laboratory sciences, or a healthcare-related field; or at least 15 years of experience in medical technology, clinical laboratory sciences, or a healthcare-related field.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Business process improvement
• Cost optimization
• Operational excellence
• Operations management
• Compliance management
• Confidentiality
• Healthcare compliance
• Maintaining files and records
• Employee training
• Stakeholder management
• Legal and regulatory requirements
• Safety management
• Computer literacy
• Member service
• Medical sanitation and infection control
• Medical terminology
• Healthcare quality standards
• Medical equipment
• Quality improvement
• Quality assurance and effectiveness
• Patient sample collection

Employee Status: Regular | Travel: Yes, 25% of the time | Job Level: Director/Senior Director | Job Type: Standard