Position Summary:
This role plays a key role in driving patient experience-focused improvement initiatives across the organization. This advanced-level position serves as a strategic partner to division and operating unit leadership teams to align patient experience improvement efforts to system and operating unit-level goals, operating plans and priorities. With a solid foundation in human-centered design strategies and performance improvement methodologies, this role partners with clinical and operations leaders to assess key patient experience metrics, assess drivers at the entity and department-level to support cross-functional teams with experience improvement and change management projects. The Senior Business Partner leverages human-centered design and patient experience evidence-based practices to independently manage moderate-to-complex projects to ensure optimal patient experience performance at the department and unit level and serves as a trusted and knowledgeable advisor on strategies to improve performance along key drivers.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Strategic Partnership
- Build relationships with senior leaders to establish credibility as a trusted advisor to influence and support key strategic and operational decisions related to patient experience.
- In conjunction with division patient experience, clinical and operational leadership, identifies opportunity units within the operating unit based on current and historical data.
- Partners with local leadership to engage team members and volunteers for improvement initiatives.
- Cultivate collaborative relationships with key leaders to facilitate and co-design interventions in support of the patient experience playbook that promotes team engagement, retention, multi-disciplinary collaboration, healthy work environments, and compassionate, timely communication with patients and caregivers.
- Lead and effectively champion frontline and cross-team collaborations and accountability to hardwire improvements in alignment with the system's four cultural beliefs, through effective listening, identifying and collaboratively problem-solving to address gaps in desired culture with physicians, leaders, staff and patient family advisors.
- Create and maintain product/project management and strategy deliverables to align on vision, future state workflows/processes, etc. by gathering input from key stakeholders including our informatics teams
- Act as an advisor on all matters related to best practices in human-centered design, patient experience, data strategy and change management.
- Collaborate with operating unit leaders to assess key performance indicators, driver and outcome metrics to measure performance, and provide data visualization to support initiatives.
- Provide routine updates on performance to divisional senior leadership teams with actionable recommendations to enhance metrics.
Experience Improvement Design & Management
- Collaborate with interdisciplinary teams to drive patient experience-based improvement initiatives.
- Performs gap analyses, patient journey mapping, and leads multiple performance improvement tests of change with a human-centered design lens.
- Identify trends, areas of concern, and opportunities for improvement, and provide actionable insight for FY improvement goals.
- Co-designs culture change strategies with stakeholders to achieve organizational goals.
- Utilize a structured methodology to analyze local processes and barriers to achieving ideal outcomes, facilitate a co-designed intervention to implement recommended improvements to advance towards a shared vision of a future state, and coordinate change implementation through individual and team facilitation.
- Independently manage project timelines, resources, and milestones for experience improvement initiatives.
- Collaborate with leadership and stakeholders to define project goals, scope, and deliverables, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives.
- Lead and support moderate-to-complex projects to support hardwiring of evidence-based best practices to support patient satisfaction metrics and foster a culture of compassion.
Change Management
- Assess organizational and team readiness for change, conduct stakeholder mapping, and identify potential risks.
- Leverage human-centered design principles and methodologies (such as Lean/Six Sigma, TeamSTEPPS, IDEO or Luma) for shared problem-solving and implementation planning, with expertise in advancing concepts such as kaizen, value stream analysis and patient journey mapping.
- Act as a mentor to teams to help them understand and practice these skills to empower them to build on success to achieve their goals.
- Strategize with project team to understand areas of resistance and co-design interventions to achieve buy-in and hardwire culture adoption of changes.
- Creating communication and training plans to support the change initiative.
- Provide ongoing partnership with teams to monitor the progress and course correct as needed as part of continuous process improvement.
Advanced Data Analysis & Visualization:
- Demonstrates proficiency in qualitative and quantitative patient experience data collection, analysis, and reporting, including focus groups.
- Continually monitors patient experience data and analyzes results, collects, and reports feedback, conducts gap analyses, identifies critical factors for success, and convenes multidisciplinary teams for process improvement initiatives.
- Conduct and facilitate in-depth workflow analyses, time studies, and other quantitative and qualitative data collection with cross-discipline teams.
- Apply statistical techniques to analyze data, create advanced process maps, generate Pareto charts, pivot tables, develop run/control charts to identify trends and opportunities for improvement and establish statistical significance for causal factors.
- Leverage existing data sets to conduct correlation analyses to identify unit-level personae for intervention development.
- Use AI and other LLM tools to derive insights from high volume of qualitative feedback.
- Ability to create clear and impactful data visualizations and reports to communicate product performance and insights.
- Ability to effectively communicate complex information to a broad range of stakeholders to drive decision-making.
Growth Mindset
- Participates and initiates research studies, actively pursues publications, and/or national presentations at conferences.
- Works with manager to formulate plan for personal professional development and identify needed resources for training.
- Attends meetings, huddles, and educational in-services as appropriate.
- Actively participates in improvement projects that improve workflows, efficiency, accuracy, and quality of care experience.
- Participates in professional activities and organizations to maintain knowledge of current trends, practices, and developments.
Other Duties as Assigned.
Travel:
- Travel between Operating Units and Emory Affiliated Sites required
Work Type:
- Hybrid employee - splits time between working remotely and working in the office.
MINIMUM REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Education: Bachelor's degree administration, industrial engineering, or public health
Experience:
- 3-5 years of experience in process improvement or collective impact implementations.
Skills:
- Proficient in Process Improvement and/or Human-Centered Design methodologies with a demonstrated ability to apply these concepts in complex settings.
- Strong analytical and statistical skills, with experience in data analysis tools such as Excel, Tableau, SaaS, PowerBI, or similar software.
- Excellent project management skills with the ability to independently manage multiple projects and prioritize effectively.
- Advanced communication and interpersonal skills, with experience presenting to leadership and cross-functional teams with strong skills in Microsoft Office Suite.
Competencies:
- Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead projects and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams at all organizational levels.
- Relationship Builder: Adept in building trust among a broad cross section of personalities and experiences to align around common goals.
- Change Agent: Keen level of emotional intelligence to understand and overcome resistance from stakeholders to achieve buy-in and anticipate future needs to support hardwiring of practices.
- Critical Thinking: Advanced problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify root causes, develop actionable insights, and implement sustainable improvements.
- Adaptability: Comfortable managing change in a dynamic healthcare environment and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
- Results-Oriented: Proven track record of delivering measurable improvements in operational efficiency, patient outcomes, and resource utilization
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Education: Master's degree in healthcare administration, industrial engineering, or public health preferred.
- Experience: 7 years experience in process improvement or collective impact implementations in a healthcare or public health environment
- Certifications: Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Luma, TeamSTEPPS, or IDEO certification preferred.
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS (Medium Max 25lbs): up to 25 lbs., 0-33% of the work day (occasionally) Lifting 25 lbs. max; Carrying of objects up to 25 lbs.; Occasional to frequent standing & walking, Occasional sitting, Close eye work (computers, typing, reading, writing), Physical demands may vary depending on assigned work area and work tasks.
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS: Factors affecting environmental conditions may vary depending on the assigned work area and tasks. Environmental exposures include but are not limited to: Blood-borne pathogen exposure, Bio-hazardous waste chemicals/gases/fumes/vapors, Communicable diseases, Electrical shock, Floor Surfaces, Hot/Cold Temperatures, Indoor/Outdoor conditions, Latex, Lighting, Patient care/handling injuries, Radiation, Shift work, Travel may be required. Use of personal protective equipment, including respirators, environmental conditions may vary depending on assigned work area and work tasks.