Improvement Specialist

Position Summary / Career Interest:

Improvement Specialists are responsible for demonstrating, teaching, and supporting administrators, clinicians, and front-line staff on the application of Lean thinking and continuous improvement techniques to solve organizational problems. Improvement Specialists help others lead improvement projects. They support operational leaders and operators in their pursuit of driving wastes out of our operations and improving quality.


Responsibilities and Essential Job Functions

• Organizational Improvement (OI) Team Members Accountabilities:
• Continuously pursue learning through experimentation. Identify opportunities to improve the work of OI.
• Demonstrate proficiency (Level 4) of skills listed in the OI Multi-function tracker.
• Support leaders and frontline staff by modeling and teaching components of the management and improvement systems.
• Support the development of the Organizational Improvement infrastructure, including Lean/Continuous Improvement (CI) "Best Practices", tools and methods for Lean/CI education, and promotion of Lean/CI thinking throughout the organization.
• Evaluate and meet the needs of OI team members to create and sustain an environment of teamwork, respect, challenge, genchi genbutsu, and kaizen.
• Demonstrates understanding and effort to support the organization’s mission, vision, and values and complies with applicable Policies and Standards of Excellence.
• Maintain all requirements for training and certifications designated for the job and employment with the Health System.
• Improvement Specialist Responsibilities:
• Lead others in the standards of preparing for, executing, and completing event-based improvements.
• Teach and support all levels of process owners in their learning and application of the methods and thinking of Lean Healthcare.
• Assure that assigned events meet quality and production standards of expected deliverables during all phases of the event and project life cycle.
• In concert with process owners, assess and identify problems and opportunities, coordinate the activities of improvement teams, identify appropriate resources, and develop a schedule to ensure timely completion of improvement projects.
• Assess gaps in standards related to Organizational Improvement transformation and respond to those gaps with the OI team.
• Teach employees and leadership on Lean principles/Continuous Improvement efforts using various outlets and mediums. Coach process owners to track and report results from improvement efforts. Assists with the collection and analysis of data. Assists in preparing reports to support decision-making and continuous improvement. Help to translate data into meaningful information, make conclusions, and shape work at the department level.
• Provide leadership for improvement programs for departments and project team members by defining the intent of programs and overseeing development deliverables to ensure project goals are met.
• In concert with project sponsors and senior consultants, assess and identify problems and opportunities, assemble improvement teams, identify resources needed, and develop schedules to ensure timely completion of improvement projects.
• Establish effective working relationships and manage communications with project sponsors, project oversight group members, process owners, and key stakeholders.
• Must be able to perform the professional, clinical and or technical competencies of the assigned unit or department.
• These statements are intended to describe the essential functions of the job and are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities. Skills and duties may vary dependent upon your department or unit. Other duties may be assigned as required.

Required Education and Experience

• Bachelor of Arts OR
• Bachelor of Science OR
• Bachelor Degree Nursing OR
• Equivalent

Preferred Education and Experience

• General knowledge of business operations and process improvement as typically acquired with 1-3 years relevant work experience.

Knowledge Requirements

• Demonstrate basic capabilities with Microsoft Visio, PowerPoint, Excel, and Word.

We are an equal employment opportunity employer without regard to a person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity and sexual orientation), national origin, ancestry, age (40 or older), disability, veteran status or genetic information.