The Program Manager, Innovation is responsible for leading innovation initiatives, evaluations, and pilot efforts at Northwestern Memorial HealthCare. The Innovation Program Manager (PM) drives project teams in achieving health system, regional and local priorities that advance the implementation of the innovation strategy for Northwestern Medicine. The PM uses business planning, strategy, data analysis, change management, project management, and other skills in advancing these efforts.
The Program Manager, Innovation reflects the mission, vision, and values of NM adheres to the organization’s Code of Ethics and Corporate Compliance Program, and complies with all relevant policies, procedures, guidelines, and all other regulatory and accreditation standards.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in related field with preference for project management business administration, engineering, innovation, entrepreneurship.
• 4-10-years’ experience in project management and health care related activities.
• Business skills, including business plan development, pro forma development and management.
• Experience managing projects in complex organizations amongst diverse stakeholders.
• Experience scoping, planning, implementing and evaluating pilot projects.
• Experience working in a health care provider environment.
• Experience performing data analysis and market research.
• Experience building executive level presentations.
• Excellent interpersonal skills to include presentation, negotiation, persuasion, team facilitation and written communications skills.
• Ability to independently manage a varied workload of projects with multiple priorities.
• Strong time management skills and sound judgment.
• Comfort with ambiguity and complex problems.
• Strong understanding of business, health care, and innovation and how they can align to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes.

Preferred:

• Master’s degree in relevant field with preference for project management business administration, public health, and engineering.

• Leads the evaluation of innovative opportunities developed internally at NM or through external vendor partners by collaborating with NM leaders to assess needs, solutions, companies, and partnerships through a methodic business case review of products, markets, leadership teams, risks, finances, and alignment to NM goals and objectives.
• Partners with Clinical Operations, IT, Marketing, Patient Engagement, OGC, Compliance, Analytics, Operations, Process Improvement, Office of Investment, and other NM Departments to thoroughly vet opportunities. Facilitates decision-making by building relationships and working with people from diverse functional backgrounds.
• Conducts value analysis for innovation opportunities across 4 domains of Experience, Cost Avoidance/Efficiency, Risk Avoidance/Reduction, and Revenue Capture to pursue solutions that provide optimal value to NM.
• Manages relationships with and works closely with startup company partners and entrepreneurs on how to successfully activate at NM.
• Guides the planning for potential innovation pilots and serves as the project manager for Minimum Viable Product (MVP) development, Proof of Concept (POC) creation, and pilot activations of innovative solutions.
• Manages the planning for innovation pilot activations by collaborating with stakeholders and vendor partners to define goals/ objectives, identify Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), assemble teams, design solutions, develop timelines, outline success metrics, define and manage tasks, and execute tasks needed to successful pilot innovative solutions.
• Creates regular status updates, executive report-outs, and presentations to effectively communicate progress and next steps for innovation opportunity evaluations and pilots.
• Creates and manages pilot project budgets including both capital and expense dollars to ensure pilots are appropriately funded and remain within the budget forecast.
• Oversees evaluation metrics of NM’s innovation offering with specific emphasis on user experience, focusing on the needs of patients, their caregivers, and NM providers.
• Works with IT, Analytics, and Operational Leaders to collect data and measure the anticipated “return on innovation” for innovation opportunities and upon completion of pilots assess the effectiveness of achieving the value to inform system-wide scaling decisions.
• Develops, refines, and leads innovation engagement programs with the NM workforce to foster innovation including the annual Innovation Challenge Grant, Innovation Champions, hackathons, and future programs that further advance innovation at NM.
• Assist with the facilitation of invention disclosure reviews between NM inventors, Office of General Counsel (OGC), Northwestern University, and other partners by soliciting invention disclosures, reviewing inventions to determine intellectual property needs, collaborating with partners to determine all involved parties, and execute agreements to foster internal inventions.
• Fosters relationships with innovation partner organizations including Chicago MATTER, Northwestern University, CB Insights, Gartner, and other healthcare innovation teams to build an innovation ecosystem to support NM.
• Conduct market research, gather industry benchmarking data, monitor emerging healthcare technology trends, attend industry conferences, and network with other healthcare innovation centers to identify high-impact innovative opportunities of relevance to NM.
• Identifies and pursues innovation offerings that align with the NM priorities and goals, enhance reputation, improve patient and provider experience, and improve financial performance.
• Actively contribute to internal Innovation team development and department growth and improvement initiatives including playbook/ process refinement, relationship building, roadshow and communication efforts, physical space planning, and use.