Program Manager

Department of Medicine - General Internal Medicine

About the Unit

This position will support a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Since our founding in 2005 under the name Finding Answers, we have pursued the goal of health equity by maintaining a focused commitment to eliminating health and healthcare disparities. In 2018 we changed our name to Advancing Health Equity, but our mission remained the same - identifying practical steps to help everyone have a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible.

Between 2005 and 2014, we managed a $16 million portfolio that funded evaluations of innovative projects across the country aimed at reducing health care disparities. We also produced numerous systematic reviews of interventions to reduce disparities. We established best practices as a leader in the field and developed the Roadmap to Reduce Disparities. Finally, we provided technical assistance to health care systems pursuing the goal of health equity.

Integrating Payment and Health Care Delivery Reforms to Achieve Health Equity
Most organizations need a strong business case to justify the time and energy needed to sustainably address disparities in patient care and health outcomes. Payment reform may be a solution, but payers and health care organizations are unsure how to design payment models that support and incentivize achieving health equity. In 2014, we funded three grantees that aimed to reduce disparities through care transformation and payment reform.

Aligning Key Stakeholders to Achieve Health Equity
The activities of policy makers, payers, enrollees, communities, and healthcare delivery organizations to achieve health equity must be aligned if they are to be effective. We currently partner with the Institute for Medicaid Innovation and the Center for Health Care Strategies to collaborate with state Medicaid agencies, Medicaid managed care health plans, and healthcare delivery organizations. The collaboration is focused on designing value-based payment and contracting models that support and incentivize healthcare delivery transformation to reduce and eliminate disparities in health and healthcare.

The tools on our website capture the program's main lessons learned and best practice recommendations so that health care and payer organizations can successfully reduce disparities via quality improvement and payment reform efforts.

More information can be found at Advancing Health Equity

Job Summary

The Program Manager will work closely with the Advancing Health Equity: Leading Care, Payment, and Systems Transformation team to develop and deliver the latest iteration of the program aimed at advancing health equity via a learning collaborative and technical assistance activities directed at state Medicaid agencies, Medicaid managed care plans, and healthcare organizations/systems. The program is designed to discover and disseminate best practices and healthcare policy recommendations for the integration of disparities-focused payment and health care delivery reform interventions into real world activities to reduce health and healthcare disparities.

Responsibilities

• Help to synthesize complex findings from existing and newly discovered knowledge into clear and simple solutions for technical assistance clients and broad dissemination to state Medicaid agencies, payer organizations, healthcare organizations and healthcare policy makers.
• Co-author papers submitted for competitive review and to develop training curricula, best practice and lessons-learned summaries, procedure manuals, and additional technical assistance products.
• Help to design and deliver technical assistance directed toward teams made up of employees from state Medicaid agencies, payer organizations, and healthcare delivery organizations.
• The program may expand its scope in the future.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree required.
• Masters degree preferred.
• Three years of relevant health or health services research or technical assistance delivery experience required.??
• Four years of relevant experience providing consultation services and technical assistance programming to state Medicaid agencies, Medicaid managed care organizations, and/or healthcare delivery organizations preferred.
• Working knowledge of health care and health outcome disparities and policy issues preferred.
• Experience with or knowledge of health care research preferred.
• Experience writing for a Web-based audience preferred.
• Ability, with proven experience, to interact effectively with at least one subset of target populations and communities of Finding Answers and health disparities research and implementation efforts of the University of Chicago preferred.
• Experience managing projects with external vendors preferred. ???

Competencies

• Impeccable problem-solving/analytic skills with an ongoing attention to detail required.
• Excellent proven writing and editing skills and ability to synthesize and translate complicated material into clear and simple language required.
• Excellent proven verbal communication and presentation skills required.
• Superb organizational, time management and prioritization skills and proven experience coordinating a variety of activities in a timely manner required.
• Strong project and people management skills required.
• Proven skill in working both independently and in a complex team environment required.
• Ability to maintain a professional demeanor and to deal effectively with people in potentially stressful, time-sensitive situations and in the face of potentially challenging interactions required.
• Experience at negotiating in order to accomplish goals required.
• Ability to form positive working relationships with people from varied backgrounds required.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality required.
• Tolerance for ambiguity required.
• Demonstrated computer literacy and computing skills sufficient for effective use of diverse managerial and administrative computer applications, technical writing, word processing and spreadsheets required.
• Occasional weekend or evening work hours required.
• Ability to travel to national meetings and conferences (approximately .05 FTE on average) required.