Data Scientist - HSR

The William Tierney Center for Health Services Research (CHSR)

The William M. Tierney Center for Health Services Research at Regenstrief Institute is dedicated to advancing transformative best practices on a scale that allows for sustainable impact on the quality and delivery of care, clinical outcomes, and the value of the healthcare experience for patients, clinicians, and in health care systems. Home to multiple research programs, CHSR leverages health care data to address the needs of health systems to improve resource allocation, expand patient access to quality health care and better health outcomes, and advance disease prevention in individuals and populations.

Join our team and use your skills with an organization known nationally for excellence in research!

Regenstrief CHSR is accepting applications for a full-time Research Data Scientist who can participate across health services research projects using programming, data mining, visualization, statistics, modeling, and other techniques to develop, evaluate, and/or apply algorithms and software for data analysis. Responsibilities include acquiring and validating data, querying databases, data processing, linkage and integration, ensuring responsible data stewardship, efficiently producing reusable code to perform repeatable statistical analyses, and contributing to the dissemination of scientific findings via peer-reviewed publications and presentations at scientific conferences.

This Research Data Scientist position will be deployed across two multidisciplinary collaboratives: The Transplant Research for Enhancing Access Team (TREAT) seeks to improve patients' access at each step of the transplant care pathway, conducting important epidemiologic and mixed methods analyses to determine the barriers and facilitators of access to transplant and by testing the efficacy and effectiveness of interventions to improve transplant access. Additionally, their work is enhanced by a continuous focus on strengthening collection of surveillance data on the early steps toward kidney transplantation. The second area of focused activity is a strategically important initiative on Evaluating Healthcare Quality, Access, Utilization, Outcomes, Expenditures for Medicare Beneficiaries. Led by CHSR Director David Haggstrom, MD, MAS, this initiative encompasses an collection of studies that leverage CMS data to investigate patient-level, physician-level, organizational-level (hospital/health system), and geographic/market/community-level factors that may help explain patterns of healthcare quality, access, utilization, outcomes, and expenditures for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries. Aims include 1) informing the development and refinement of performance and outcome measures; 2) guiding the development of in-hospital, post-discharge quality improvement efforts, as well as coordination of care across ambulatory settings, to reduce the risk of adverse outcomes; 3) improving inpatient and outpatient quality through improved risk assessment and care planning; and 4) informing policy and legislation in domains including medical education, healthcare quality measurement and reporting and reimbursement.

General areas of research and collaboration in which the Research Data Scientist will be involved include the use of other claims datasets being made available to investigators, including Medicare datasets linked to SEER cancer registries, namely SEER-Medicare and SEER-MHOS. In addition, the person holding this position will apply their expertise in collaboration with other Regenstrief investigators in the Center for Health Services Research to pursue high-priority, high-impact research. Regenstrief CHSR investigators currently include more than 30 health services researchers who form a multidisciplinary scientific network applying expertise from the fields of healthcare (medicine, specialty care, nursing), social sciences, engineering, informatics, epidemiology, health economics, health policy, and other disciplines to foster discovery and application of evidence-based practice in the following emphasis areas:

• Cancer health services: population analytics, patient-centered informatics, survivorship, screening, and prevention
• Health services, outcomes, and policy research in solid organ transplantation
• Health information exchange focusing on systems-based approaches to improving patient safety
• Implementation and evaluation of electronic clinical quality measures to link effective use of data to provider actions

• Healthcare delivery for mental illness and symptom management
• Local/global research emphasizing sustainable community-based health interventions in resource-constrained areas
• Healthcare interventions and delivery of care in populations affected by chronic disease, mental illness, chronic pain, stroke, surgical disease, and cancer and those presenting in health care systems for primary, surgical or emergency medical care

Regenstrief Institute and the Center for Health Services Research are hybrid work environments. This position follows a hybrid working model, incorporating at least two days per week of onsite presence with periodic in-person team meetings.

This position is a HYBRID role with two (2) days of onsite activity based on business needs.

Position Purpose
Regenstrief Institute relies on insightful use and analysis of data to power our research. We're seeking an experienced data scientist to deliver that insight to our investigators and research teams. The Data Scientist prepares, interprets and cleans data, asks questions, connects the dots, and uncovers opportunities that lie within the data.

Position Essential Duties and Responsibilities
To perform this job satisfactorily, an individual must be able to perform each essential function satisfactorily.

• Collaborates with investigators and research teams to develop an understanding of needs and to define key objectives and aims.
• Manages and executes research projects
• Researches and devises innovative statistical models for data analysis, collaborating with statisticians as needed.
• Participates in an iterative research process by discussing findings with investigators, research teams, and other stakeholders and modifying models and analyses based upon discussion.
• Enables smarter data analysis processes and implements analytics for meaningful insights.
• Works as the lead data Scientist, identifying and integrating new datasets that can be leveraged throughout the department/organization. Identifies relevant data sources to help address research needs and collects large structured and unstructured datasets and variables.
• Works closely with the investigators, research teams and other stakeholders to strategize and execute the development of datasets.
• Devises and utilizes algorithms and models to mine data stores, performs data and error analysis to improve models, and cleans and validates data for uniformity and accuracy.
• Analyzes data for trends and patterns, and interprets data with a clear objective in mind.
• Implements analytical models into production by collaborating with other stakeholders.
• Communicates analytic solutions to investigators, research teams and other stakeholders and implements improvements as needed.
• Assists with preparation of proposals, presentations, abstracts, manuscripts, and other dissemination materials.
  
  

Education and Experience

• Requires a Bachelor's degree in statistics, applied mathematics, or related discipline. Master's degree in related field preferred.
• Requires at least 5 years experience in data science. Two or more years in project management experience preferred.
• Proficiency with data mining, mathematics, and statistical analysis.
• Advanced pattern recognition and predictive modeling experience.
• Experience with Excel, PowerPoint, Tableau, SQL, and programming languages (i.e., Java/Python, SAS).
• Requires strong analytical and problem-solving abilities, including the ability to break down and understand complex business problems, define a solution and implement it using advanced quantitative methods
• Requires excellent oral and written communication skills, especially around analytical concepts and methods.
• Requires the ability to work successfully with a diverse set of internal and external stakeholder.
  
  

Areas of knowledge include:

Decision Making
The decision-making competency focuses on how much one is expected to make decisions when performing the work. It is directly aligned with the performance autonomy competency.

Related responsibilities include:

• Uses personal judgment and initiative to develop effective and constructive solutions to challenges and obstacles in the activity and procedures of the Institute
• Independently manages the short term against the long term priorities of assigned projects.
• Recommends solutions to investigators and leadership to improve processes and project outcomes often involving multiple complexities and multiple entities.
• Independently processes information and makes decisions based on good understanding of results expected with minimal errors.
• Cultivates research partnerships as necessary to move forward the long term strategies of the program.
• Effectively discerns when to seek input from leadership with higher-level decisionmaking.
• Interprets rules, timeliness, specifications, and documentation requirements from the funding agency or client

Creativity
The creativity competency focuses on the amount of design, development, and problem-solving creativity expected in the role.

Related responsibilities include:

• Uses creative thinking to design and develop research tools, protocols, and questionnaires at the request of the investigator
• Creates high quality written products including but not limited to grant applications, budgets, research proposals, presentations, abstracts, lectures, posters and manuscripts.
• Initiates and ensures thorough research on topics related to research projects.
• Applies creativity to strategic planning including applications beyond the usual boundaries.
  
  

Teamwork and Management
The teamwork and management competency focuses on the interaction and collaboration between team members. It also focuses on the ability to manage people and projects. Inherent in this competency is the ability to communicate orally and in writing and to improve communication skills as time and experience progress.

Related responsibilities include:

• Provides information to and seeks input and feedback from team members, leadership, and service center staff (such as RDS, HR, Finance, etc.) in order to improve individual work activities especially as it relates to the strategic direction of assigned projects.

Physical Demands
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential duties of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential duties.

• This position requires the physical ability to work 40 hours per week, including the flexibility to work extended hours as necessary to meet organizational needs
• This position requires the ability to sit and/or stand for extended periods of time
• This position requires the manual dexterity to operate a keyboard and pointing device
• This position requires the ability to travel around campus or to outside meetings as necessary
• This position requires the ability to perform focused work with close attention to detail
• This position requires excellent speaking, writing, and listening skills
• This position requires some physical activity, such as pushing, pulling, lifting, carrying, and moving (up to 20 pounds)
  
  

Work Environment
The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential duties of this job.

• This work takes place in mainly an office environment with possible meetings and interactions in a hospital environment.
• This work is fast-paced and deadline-oriented and requires a flexible work schedule
• The use of a computer, business office equipment, and other machinery is necessary
• This position requires working as a team member and also independently
• This position requires working and interacting with others, both in person and through phone, e-mail, and written correspondence

• Work with a variety of diverse professionals in the healthcare industry
• Free parking
• Paid holidays, vacation, and sick time
• Group Life and Voluntary Term Life insurance
• Long-term and Short-term Disability plans
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
• 403b Retirement Plan with gracious employer contributions
• Fitness program
• Pet insurance
• Qualified employer for loan forgiveness

Please note sponsorship and/or relocation are not available for this position.

REGENSTRIEF INSTITUTE REQUIRES ALL EMPLOYEES TO RECEIVE THE INFLUENZA VACCINATION ANNUALLY UNLESS APPROVED FOR EXEMPTION