Director, Laboratory Operations Management

About the Role

This position oversees timely and accurate laboratory reporting, directs day-to-day operations of a clinical laboratory in a labor management partnership environment, and maintains competency in laboratory testing. Responsibilities include managing both credentialed and non-credentialed personnel, performing bench work as needed, and ensuring compliance with quality assurance, safety, regulatory, and accreditation standards.

Responsibilities

• Prepares individuals for growth opportunities and advancement; builds internal collaborative networks for self and others.
• Solicits and acts on performance feedback; drives collaboration to set goals and provide open feedback and coaching to foster performance improvement.
• Demonstrates continuous learning; oversees recruitment, selection, and development of talent; ensures performance management aligns with business needs.
• Stays updated with organizational best practices, processes, benchmarks, and industry trends; shares best practices within and across teams.
• Motivates and empowers teams; aligns resource plans with business objectives to maintain a highly skilled and engaged workforce.
• Provides guidance for difficult decisions; creates opportunities for expanded scope of decision-making and impact.
• Oversees multiple units within a department by identifying operational needs, ensuring work assignment completion, and translating business strategy into actionable requirements.
• Gains cross-functional support for business plans and priorities; assumes responsibility for decision-making; sets standards and measures progress.
• Communicates goals and objectives; analyzes resources, costs, and forecasts; prioritizes and distributes resources.
• Removes obstacles impacting performance; guides performance and develops contingency plans to ensure business objectives are met.
• Maintains testing and training standards by promoting strategic initiatives, developing training materials, and establishing competency standards for personnel.
• Scopes current and future training needs; strategizes training programs (regular, in-service, competency-based) and completes own training.
• Maintains compliance and accreditation by defining policies and work instructions aligned with regulations, license requirements, and accreditation standards.
• Oversees adherence to requirements for recruitment, processing, testing, storage, and distribution of materials and samples.
• Implements corrective and preventive actions for regulatory/accreditation deficiencies; ensures timely renewal of licenses and updates documentation.
• Serves as a link between medical laboratory services and other services by influencing practice changes in response to regulatory updates, inspection citations, and industry trends.
• Advises cross-functional teams to improve technical and non-technical quality management systems.
• Networks and collaborates with leadership teams locally and nationally to align lab operations, quality, and utilization.
• Manages strategic relationships with external vendors, public health/safety organizations, and healthcare providers.
• Provides expert advice on community health concerns and referred testing; sets expectations for alignment with local and national standards.
• Ensures medical laboratory operations and improves processes by developing strategies for efficient operations, quality, service, patient safety, and cost-effectiveness.
• Develops and champions innovative work plans to improve systems across the continuum of care; oversees process deployment.
• Introduces and advocates for new testing methodologies, processes, and technology to improve service, quality, and efficiency.
• Strategizes resolution of onsite facilities issues; coordinates efforts with internal and external vendors.
• Forecasts personnel needs during varying workloads; establishes inventory and maintenance systems; estimates supply usage and costs.
• Initiates approaches for ongoing project management, including local, regional, and national initiatives; monitors timeline progress and communicates with stakeholders.
• Manages service quality by championing policies and procedures for audit and process improvement projects.
• Approves corrective actions and process improvements based on internal and external quality audits.
• Recommends plans for correcting deviations from expected quality control results.
• Initiates strategies to ensure tests are performed properly and results are verified before sharing.
• Establishes procedures for specimen collection and processing according to time and quality standards.
• Advises on resolution of proficiency testing concerns; develops strategies to resolve pre-analytical, analytical, or post-analytical testing problems.

Requirements

• Minimum two (2) years of experience managing operational or project budgets.
• Minimum three (3) years of experience in a leadership role with direct reports in a healthcare-related field.
• Bachelor’s degree in medical lab science or equivalent, or a healthcare-related field AND minimum ten (10) years of experience in medical technology, clinical laboratory sciences, or a healthcare-related field OR minimum thirteen (13) years of experience in medical technology, clinical laboratory sciences, or a healthcare-related field.

Preferred Qualifications

• Technical Supervisor Certification from the American Board of Bioanalysis.
• Medical Technologist Certification.

Schedule

• Full-time, standard shift.
• Workdays: Monday through Friday.
• Working hours: 08:00 AM to 05:00 PM.
• Scheduled weekly hours: 40.
• Travel: Yes, 10% of the time.
• Work setting: Onsite.

Pay

Pay range: $189,000 - $217,800 per year. Actual base pay determined at offer will be based on labor market data, internal alignment, and a candidate's years of relevant work experience, education, certifications, skills, and geographic location.