Director and Technical Lead Data Science & Innovation GEMINI

GEMINI is Canada’s largest hospital data and analytics network that provides insight into patient care for research and quality improvement. Currently, GEMINI holds granular data on >3 million patient admissions (>10 billion data points) – a population-level laboratory to study and improve hospital care. This deep individual-level data is critical to harness advanced analytic methods such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

GEMINI uses advanced methods and analytics to extract and standardize data captured in hospital electronic health records. Over 1,000 scientists, clinicians, and students are increasingly using this data. GEMINI currently exists at 40+ Ontario hospitals and supports the Ontario General Medicine Quality Improvement Network, GeMQIN, a provincial network led by Ontario Health to improve care for general medicine hospital patients. In total, GEMINI has been a core dataset on >$300 million of grant funding across 20 institutions.

Building on GEMINI, the Government of Canada has funded the establishment of Vital, a national-scale data platform to enable research and innovation with near real-time hospital data from at least 8 provinces and territories, beginning with Ontario, Alberta and Quebec.

The Technical Lead and Director, GEMINI Data Science and Innovation will lead GEMINI’s efforts in accelerating research and innovation using hospital data by leveraging technology, optimizing processes and streamlining operations, and implementing data governance approaches. The Director will lead the continued growth and successful development of GEMINI’s data and analytics platform. An important part of the work, to be accomplished in partnership with the Technical Lead for Vital, will be to lead the establishment of the capabilities that are required for Ontario’s participation in the new national Vital platform.

The successful candidate will have expertise in data management, a strong technical background, and experience leading a technical team. They will promote a safe and inclusive work environment and lead an agile and cross-functional team that works in data collection and management, reporting, research software, and data analytics. They will work closely with a supportive systems and IT infrastructure team, particularly in the implementation of cybersecurity tools and practices, as well as with a research operations team that is responsible for setting data governance and privacy policies, which the data team implements. They will build strong positive relationships with GEMINI’s internal and external stakeholders including hospital leadership, researchers and government partners. They will participate in the Executive Team of the Unity Health Toronto GEMINI and Vital teams, providing strategic input into organizational direction and management.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide strategic leadership, set priorities and operational oversight to advance GEMINI’s data and analytics platform.
• Promote innovation and lead efforts to develop novel approaches to tackle data challenges.
• Manage and advance GEMINI’s established data collection, standardization, and quality control processes, including initiatives to modernize data assets through the implementation of common data models that support scalable research, analytics, and interoperability.
• Provide strategic and operational oversight of the GeMQIN reporting program, ensuring the timely delivery of high-quality reports that meet the needs of participating hospitals and support quality improvement initiatives.
• Oversee the technical ecosystem that supports research use of GEMINI data, including research-ready databases and analytics tools, ensuring solutions are scalable, maintainable, secure, and aligned with organizational priorities.
• Work with the Vital Technical Lead to innovate new methods in hospital data collection to enable near real-time access to data for research and innovation.
• Lead the implementation of technology and processes to implement data governance and privacy practices, ensuring regulatory compliance of GEMINI’s data holdings and infrastructure, in partnership with the research operations team.
• Work with the IT systems and research operations team to implement cybersecurity technology and practices for handling sensitive health data.
• Work with GEMINI’s research team to incorporate new innovations, particularly harnessing Artificial Intelligence, into routine data collection and management processes and into analytical tools.
• Work with GEMINI’s research team to support the development and delivery of data products and analytical tools to facilitate efficient, cutting-edge research.
• Manage and execute processes that support the continuous improvement of data team operations.
• Lead the GEMINI data platform team through a period of transition relating to new methods of data collection and processing and new ways of engaging with the national Vital network.
• Provide strategic input into organizational decision-making for GEMINI and Vital that is grounded in data and analytic expertise.
• Lead multidisciplinary technical teams across data collection, reporting, data engineering, analytics, data science, and research software development.
• Foster a positive work culture that encourages innovation, learning and continuous improvement, supported by the broader Executive Team within GEMINI and Vital and Unity Health Toronto as well as external expert coaching as needed.
• Contribute to strategic decisions about team structure and human resources for the GEMINI data team to optimize team function, aligned with GEMINI’s evolving deliverables, including identifying capacity needs and supporting recruitment and retention of team members.
• Provide mentorship, coaching and growth opportunities to a diverse workforce, with a particular focus on technical mentorship, supporting team members to upskill and improve their workflows with AI and rapidly evolving computing technologies.
• Work collaboratively with GEMINI leaders and other stakeholders including hospital leadership, researchers and government partners.

Qualifications:

• Completion of a Master’s degree in Computer Science, Bioinformatics and/or related discipline; PhD an asset
• Minimum seven (7) years of experience conducting and leading data-driven initiatives and large-scale projects
• Minimum seven (7) years of relevant experience participating in and managing cross-functional teams with the ability to guide teams through complex projects, ambiguity, and change
• Minimum seven (7) years of experience across multiple technical domains, including data engineering, data management, data analytics and reporting, data science, artificial intelligence, software development, and data governance
• Minimum five (5) years of experience with healthcare data including clinical and operational workflows
• Minimum five (5) plus years of experience using project management tools and methodologies
• Outstanding analytical and problem-solving skills
• Strong experience working with high performance computing environments, complex technical operations and software development principles in an open source framework
• Advanced knowledge in data science tools such as R and Python, and relational databases
• Familiarity with cloud-based infrastructure, federated analysis and event-driven architecture is an asset
• Exceptional organization skills and strong time management experience developing project plans to meet objectives and budgets, adaptable to managing multiple tasks and deadline pressures
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills to engage, articulate and conceptualize ideas/issues at all organizational levels with stakeholders
• Fully proficient in working independently and self-directed while taking accountability for own actions

Unity Health Toronto is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive organization. We strive to provide a recruitment process that is barrier-free and in compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and the Ontario Human Rights Code. We understand that you may require an accommodation at any stage of the recruitment process. When you are contacted, please inform the Talent Acquisition Specialist and we will work with you to meet your accommodation needs. We want to emphasize that all accommodation requests are handled with the utmost confidentiality, respecting your privacy and dignity.