Data Manager

Overview

We seek a motivated and independent Data Manager for a full-time position to assist Principal Investigator (PI) Dr. Denise Hynes and her team in the Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC) at the Veterans Administration (VA) Portland Health Care System (Portland, Oregon). The Data Manager will provide data management and analytic support to multiple research projects focused on care management and outcomes for chronic conditions that affect military veterans. Studies are led out of the Portland VA and involve collaboration with other VA and academic partners across the US.

Specific research projects topics are related to care coordination impacts on outcomes for patients with high-risk chronic conditions, Veteran and provider perceptions of integrated care, and long-term outcomes of COVID-19. These research projects employ a health systems research framework and typically include use of both quantitative and qualitative methods. Current projects are observational and future intervention projects are planned.

Responsibilities

Tasks for the Data Manager would include following, depending on skillset:

• Accessing the VA’s electronic health records in the Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) and using SQL to obtain/extract and join original data in preparation for analysis
• Cleaning CDW data as needed (e.g., for diagnosis codes, laboratory tests, medications)
• Creating analytic variables from extracted data using CDW and other large data
• Cleaning and managing healthcare claims data (e.g., Medicare claims)
• Presenting preliminary summary information and statistics of the analytic variables to the team
• Documenting code and summaries of interim and final datasets used for analyses
• Executing preliminary analyses under the direction of the investigators, such as frequencies and initial regression analyses, and presenting the results to the team
• Communicating with other study analysts and study investigators to relay results and optimize data management and analytic plans

Experience and Qualifications

Required:

• Master’s or PhD-level training with a background in biostatistics, epidemiology, data science, health science or closely related field. Applicants with a bachelor’s degree will also be considered if they can demonstrate that they have the necessary practical experience.
• Desired skills include processing large data bases from electronic health records, creating analytic variables, creating data documentation, and executing some analyses under the direction of the study’s senior biostatisticians, other analysts, and co-investigators.
• Experience using data management tools such as SQL, and statistical software such as STATA, SAS, R applied to healthcare data is required.

Additional Skills:

• Experience with research in the VA and/or
• Experience in clinical-epidemiological research is preferred

Candidates must be US citizens to be eligible for VA employment.

This position may be eligible for partial teleworking, a transit pass if applicable, as well as paid vacation, sick leave, and a range of healthcare and retirement benefits.

This position will be located at VA CIVIC. CIVIC was established in 2013 as a Center of Innovation in health services research at the VA Portland Health Care System. CIVIC’s mission is to conduct research that empowers veterans to improve their health through engagement in self-care, engagement with VA and non-VA healthcare systems, and engagement in the research process. The CIVIC community is committed to developing, fostering, and retaining a diverse workforce. We seek applicants who have experience working with diverse communities and on diverse teams. In addition, we seek candidates who have experience engaging, communicating with, and incorporating perspectives from multiple diverse or underrepresented communities into research.

CIVIC values individuals at all points in their career trajectories, and CIVIC is committed to fostering the professional growth of its staff. Within CIVIC and the broader VA and Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) communities, there are many opportunities for continuing education, didactic and training related to a broad variety of topics. Such opportunities include OHSU Departmental Grand Rounds or larger events, research in progress meetings, CIVIC conferences, analyst drop-in sessions, qualitative forums, and more.

We are committed to a welcoming and inclusive culture, and we seek to incorporate diverse perspectives into our work. Interested candidates should send a cover letter and a resume/CV to Holly McCready, by email at holly.mccready2@va.gov with the subject line ‘Research Data Manager’.