Primary Location
Location C
Department
Cardiothoracic Surgery
Shift
Day (United States of America)
Schedule
Full time
Weekly Hours
40
FTE
1
Employee Status
Regular

Senior Clinical Program Specialist - Cardiothoracic Surgery

Department: Cardiothoracic Surgery
Position: Senior Clinical Program Specialist
Schedule: Days
Location: Cincinnati Children's Burnet Campus

Position Overview

Cincinnati Children's is seeking an experienced Senior Clinical Program Specialist to provide clinical and operational coordination for the Living Allogenic Heart Valve Transplant (LAVT), Biventricular (BiV) Repair, and Major Aortopulmonary Collateral Arteries (MAPCA) programs.

This role serves as a central point of coordination across complex, multidisciplinary cardiac teams and helps ensure patients move efficiently through the continuum of care-from referral and evaluation through procedural planning, treatment, discharge, and longitudinal follow-up.

The Senior Clinical Program Specialist builds strong working relationships across cardiology, cardiac surgery, electrophysiology, advanced imaging, virtual procedural planning, and other specialty teams. This position plays a key role in maintaining continuity, identifying barriers, facilitating communication, and supporting the continued growth and development of these innovative cardiac programs.

Key Responsibilities

• Maintain accurate, up-to-date program patient lists, including both inpatient and outpatient populations, and maintain a strong understanding of the clinical status and needs of active patients.
• Coordinate care across cardiac surgery, cardiology, electrophysiology, advanced imaging/virtual planning, and other multidisciplinary teams involved in patient care.
• Track patients throughout the complete care pathway, including referral, initial evaluation, diagnostic workup, preoperative planning, intervention, discharge, and follow-up.
• Coordinate required consultations, imaging studies, diagnostic testing, and other evaluations to support timely progression of care.
• Monitor outstanding clinical and logistical needs and proactively identify barriers, delays, or gaps in care.
• Facilitate appropriate follow-up and communication to promote continuity and progression of patient care.
• Organize and facilitate regular multidisciplinary program meetings to review patients, discuss treatment options and management plans, and support coordinated clinical decision-making.
• Serve as a liaison among providers, specialties, and interdisciplinary teams to facilitate communication and ensure follow-through on patient care plans.
• Maintain program-specific patient tracking systems, databases, and clinical documentation.
• Collect and track program data, outcomes, and key metrics to support longitudinal patient follow-up, quality improvement, program development, and clinical research.
• Serve as a knowledgeable resource and point of contact for patients and families navigating complex multidisciplinary cardiac care.
• Facilitate communication between patients, families, providers, and members of the multidisciplinary team.
• Support patient and family navigation throughout complex evaluation and treatment pathways.
• Collaborate with program leadership to identify opportunities to improve processes, communication, efficiency, and patient experience.
• Support virtual procedural planning and other advanced program-development initiatives as the programs evolve.
• Assist with the development and implementation of workflows, processes, and resources to support program growth and sustainability.
• Participate in quality improvement, clinical research, and program evaluation activities as appropriate.

Expectations

• Function independently within established clinical and program workflows.
• Maintain comprehensive awareness of active patients, upcoming interventions, outstanding evaluations, and program needs.
• Demonstrate ownership of patient coordination, communication, and follow-through across multiple multidisciplinary teams.
• Proactively identify potential barriers to care and facilitate solutions before they impact the patient's care progression.
• Serve as a knowledgeable and trusted resource for physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, patients, families, and other interdisciplinary partners.
• Demonstrate sound clinical judgment and understanding of complex congenital heart disease and cardiac care pathways.
• Establish effective relationships across multiple specialties and organizational departments.
• Contribute to the ongoing development, evaluation, and improvement of program processes.
• Support the growth and advancement of innovative cardiac programs through strong clinical coordination and operational leadership.

Qualifications

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in related field.
• 5+ years of work experience in a related job discipline OR Master's degree and 0-2 years' experience.
• Clinical licensure in related field and program.
• Demonstrated experience coordinating complex patient care across multidisciplinary teams.
• Excellent organizational, communication, critical-thinking, and follow-through skills.
• Ability to independently manage multiple patients, priorities, and complex care pathways.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to build effective relationships with physicians, nurses, patients, families, and interdisciplinary partners.

Preferred:

• Strong clinical knowledge and experience in pediatrics.
• Experience caring for patients with congenital heart disease.
• Experience in pediatric cardiology, cardiac surgery, cardiac intensive care, or another complex cardiac specialty.
• Experience coordinating complex multidisciplinary cardiac care.
• Experience with clinical databases, patient tracking systems, outcomes tracking, quality improvement, or clinical research.
• Experience with program development or clinical program coordination.
• Familiarity with advanced cardiac imaging, virtual procedural planning, or innovative cardiac treatment programs.

Why Join Cincinnati Children's?

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of innovative pediatric cardiac programs that are advancing treatment options for children with complex congenital heart disease. Have a direct impact on patient care by connecting multidisciplinary teams, anticipating barriers, coordinating complex care pathways, and helping patients and families navigate some of the most specialized cardiac care available.

Join Cincinnati Children's and help shape the future of complex congenital heart care, innovative cardiac procedures, and multidisciplinary pediatric cardiac programs.

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES

• Program Coordination and Education Management - Serves as program coordinator for assigned program. Supports leadership in implementation, coordination, evaluation and planning of program's short/long term goals. Serves as primary program liaison for daily administration and operational issues such as data management, marketing/communications, outreach, annual conference coordination, education and social media coordination. Maintains direct communication with key staff for interaction and information exchange among program components, project leaders, and professional and lay communities. Participates fully in strategic planning process and identifies areas of need and focuses on translating portions of annual plan in to well defined projects and programs w/timelines and deliverables. Plans and executes projects in a timely manner. Provides support for internal/external education offerings and competency requirements and resources. Develops educational training using current evidence and research; serves as resource to multidisciplinary staff. Provides education/collaboration on improvement work internally/externally. Provides input in funding decisions for clinical education and staff professional development.
• Marketing/Outreach/Communication - Places orders for materials and monitors budget for funded projects. Facilitates grant applications and provides support for timely submissions in conjunction with research. Provides manuscript and reference support, including use of electronic resources (PubMed, EndNote etc.). May acts as a liaison between clinical staff, business personnel and billing/coding personnel regarding appropriate documentation/procedural modifications. Organizes and administers other program responsibilities, such as the maintenance of patient records, electronic systems, and files. May assist with program budget, account payables/account receivables. Coordinates marketing of the specialty program/center. Serves as point person for Marketing and Communications team for website content updates and help guide content development for brochures, social media properties and other marketing materials. Works with Marketing Depart. to further improve internet website visibility, including optimization of search engine results (Google, Yahoo) and other social media venues (e.g., Facebook, Twitter). Performs assessments of website for accuracy of data and information and performs content updates on a monthly basis. Supports and contributes to community/outreach planning and reporting process.
• Process/Quality Improvement and Outcomes - Identify, develop, and implement new methods, processes, and systems to improve and facilitate the division or team's work. Identify ways to improve data quality and usability and to streamline and enhance reporting processes and/or deliverables. Identify and recommend procedures to enhance or maintain a high level of effectiveness in daily operations. May supports data collection and quality/usability. May supports alignment of EBP, PI and research within the division or team and participates in related implementation and strategic planning, with emphasis on increasing the overall (mean) population health and working towards eliminating disparities and getting best outcomes.
• Operations Mgmt. - Direct and coordinate the daily operations of the program(s), department(s)/facilities in collaboration with leadership. Direct, establish and monitor business processes to ensure effective and efficient operations. Identify and implement policies and procedures for improved utilization and operations. Identify opportunities for improving cost and quality through in-depth analysis. Develop and implement policies and procedures for improved utilization, quality and operations. Ensure operations are efficient, cost effective and effective. Resolve issues concerning staffing, utilization of facilities and equipment. Develop and interpret policies and procedures for staff and ensure that all policies are in conformance with Medical Center guidelines. Ensure compliance with all regulatory requirements associated with the Joint Commission, OSHA, CMS and any other agency. Promote programmatic development, efficient work and patient flow, supply and instrument management, and a safe culture and environment. Project Mgmt.-Collaborates with others to implement and evaluate departmental or organization wide project plans. Accurately report tasks and status to project lead. Work with functional lead to monitor and document information related to the project.
• Grant, Data, and Financial Management - Provide support in the preparation and submission of external and internal funded projects via EPAS or online grant application portal as specified by sponsor. Serve as a liaison between the PI and subcontract sites in matters related to requested documents. Provide guidance to PI in relation to required attachments or documentation required by the sponsor. Assist faculty with special projects, reports, and correspondence as related to grant acquisition. Maintain records of annual evaluations for accreditation purposes. Develop and manage annual operating budgets or provide direction as needed. Integrate the financial management and decision making across the department/division; assist with process for financial controls; review and provide direction on analysis of financial performance and discuss results with key stakeholders; contribute to the evaluation of variances, determine underlying causes and identify, present, and implement proposed solutions; establish and monitor productivity metrics. Provide oversight in revenue cycle management; creating competitive pricing, developing/expanding programs; and monthly revenue reporting.

Medium to Large sized/complexity program, as determined by - Direct Reports (TBD), Annual Program Expense (TBD), Departments/Disciplines Involved (TBD), Size of Team/Program (TBD), Missions (TBD), Visits/Patients/Participants (TBD)

Comprehensive job description provided upon request.