RIS Team Lead / Manager

About the role

Akumin is a leading provider of outpatient radiology and oncology services, partnering with top hospitals and health systems nationwide to deliver advanced diagnostic imaging and exceptional patient care close to home. With a national footprint, cutting-edge technology, and a strong commitment to innovation and patient-centered care, our teams play a vital role in improving outcomes for millions of patients each year.

The Radiology Information Systems (RIS) Team Lead / Manager is responsible for leading the engineering and support team tasked with the design, configuration, optimization, integration, and ongoing lifecycle management of enterprise radiology workflows across our RIS and PACS platforms. This role combines people leadership, workflow architecture, and systems integration, providing strategic oversight and hands-on technical guidance to a multidisciplinary team of RIS analysts, workflow specialists, and integration engineers. Operating as a pivotal liaison between technical engineering, clinical operations, radiologist groups, and revenue cycle leadership, the Team Lead ensures that scheduling, order intake, prior authorization, exam execution, radiologist reporting, and billing workflows are standardized, resilient, scalable, and fully aligned with organizational clinical and financial objectives.

As our enterprise imaging network continues to expand, this leadership role transforms our radiology informatics infrastructure into an agile, scalable business orchestration engine. By harmonizing technical innovation, team talent, and streamlined clinical workflows, the RIS Team Lead / Manager directly elevates patient access, improves provider satisfaction, accelerates report turnaround times, and secures organizational financial health.

Responsibilities

• Leadership, Team Management & Operational Governance
  • Lead, mentor, and foster continuous growth across a high-performing team of RIS analysts and clinical systems specialists. Conduct performance evaluations, set operational objectives, and establish clear technical career paths.
  • Effectively manage team capacity across daily break-fix support, continuous workflow optimization, enterprise project deliverables, and major system rollouts.
  • Establish and enforce best practices, standard operating procedures (SOPs), system change management protocols, and comprehensive documentation standards for enterprise RIS configuration.
  • Act as the primary technical and operational liaison between clinical operations, IT/interoperability teams, revenue cycle management (RCM) leadership, and core software vendors (e.g., Royal Health, eRAD, PACS vendors).
• Workflow Architecture & Enterprise Standardization
  • Drive the design, standardization, and continuous refinement of end-to-end radiology workflows across multi-site and regional imaging centers.
  • Govern the architecture and maintenance of procedure catalogs (CPT/HCPCS codes), modality exam protocols, and scheduling rules to optimize clinical throughput, turnaround time (TAT), patient access, and clean claim capture.
  • Identify operational bottlenecks, scheduling friction points, and communication gaps across sites; develop data-driven technical and workflow interventions to maximize modality utilization.
• Interoperability & Integration Architecture
  • Partner with Interoperability and PACS teams to oversee and validate HL7, DICOM, and FHIR data streams (ADT, ORM, ORU, DFT, MDM), ensuring data integrity across EHR, RIS, PACS, VNA, and third-party portals.
  • Design and implement robust message routing rules, error queues, and exception-handling workflows to prevent dropped orders or delayed diagnostic reports.
  • Oversee integration between RIS, dictation/speech recognition systems (e.g., PowerScribe, Fluency), and clinical distribution channels.
• Implementation Leadership, Migrations & Project Delivery
  • Lead or support enterprise-level RIS migrations, platform consolidations, site expansions, and major version upgrades from conception through stabilization.
  • Direct project workstreams including technical scoping, workflow mapping, configuration, user acceptance testing (UAT), training curriculum development, cutover planning, and post-launch hypercare.
  • Monitor support ticket trends, key performance indicators (KPIs), and user feedback to proactively implement automated triage, self-service enhancements, and platform stability measures.

Qualifications

• Education & Experience
  • Bachelor’s Degree in Healthcare Informatics, Computer Science, Information Technology, Healthcare Administration, or equivalent practical experience.
  • 7+ years of progressive experience in healthcare clinical applications, with dedicated expertise in Radiology Information Systems (RIS) and PACS ecosystems.
  • 2+ years of demonstrated experience in a team lead, supervisory, or technical project management capacity.
• Technical & Clinical Domain Knowledge
  • In-depth understanding of radiology business operations, multi-facility scheduling matrices, technologist workflows, and radiologist reading worklists.
  • Strong command of healthcare revenue cycle dependencies, including CPT/HCPCS coding accuracy, ICD-10 cross-referencing, authorization capture, and electronic charge posting.
  • Solid technical understanding of healthcare interoperability standards and protocols (HL7 v2/v3, DICOM, FHIR, IHE Scheduled Workflow profiles).
  • Experience with IT Service Management (ITSM) tools, ticket triage, SLA monitoring, and formal Change Management processes.
• Leadership & Interpersonal Skills
  • Exceptional verbal and written communication skills with the proven ability to