Information Scientist II

Req ID: 6850

Shift: Days

Employment Status: AF – Active – Regular – Full Time

Job Summary

The Data Science Team (DST) is a newly formed Unit within the Analytics & Reporting Team (A&R) within Information Services at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Its mission is developing procedures, algorithms, models, protocols to improve the pediatric healthcare delivery system by mining the vast amount of data using data science.

The Information Analyst is a critical role to DST’s ability to develop and promote the use of information and knowledge discovery for clinical, financial, operational, market and service analyses to inform management decision-making, enhance operations, and improve clinical outcomes based on delivery of evidence in ways that simplify decision-making. It is of utmost importance that this process complies with human computer interaction and user-centric design best practices. The successful candidate must have a clear understanding of the ideal balance between information technology and data science in order to help design and implement better information systems and devise visual interfaces that will increase its efficiency of use.

The Information Analyst will manage and participate as a member of a group of information analysts whose key roles will include (1) Implement computational algorithms and experiments for test and evaluation (2) Develop high-quality code implementing models and algorithms as application programming interfaces or other service-oriented software implementations., (3) Participate in communication of research methods, implementation, and results to varied audience of clinicians, scientists, analysts, and programmers, (4) developing information visualization tools for data mining of the information, (5) Work closely with applications research group to translate models and algorithms into engineered production applications, (6) Contribute to manuscript writing for results publication, authors abstracts, and presents at professional conferences and (7) assessing and responding to CHOP’S information needs. This work will be done under the guidance of the Data Science Manager.

Job Responsibilities

1. Analysis & Architectural Design

• Builds the core information infrastructure and develops effective methodologies to support CHOP’s data analysis and data integrity based on a semantic data model.

• On a project basis, identifies and assesses appropriate data sources, developing and implementing access/acquisition plan, assuring data integrity, developing and implementing accessible (i.e. web) scorecards and dashboards, and other functions that are in the process chain.

• Analyzes statistical information and develops key performance indicators (KPI’s) in accordance with user centric design paradigm.

• Develop online analytical processing (OLAP), predictive analysis and data mining models to discover new patterns and trends in the information, displaying the results within a scientific visualization representation.

o Perform exploratory data analysis and predictive modeling in pediatric biomedical research using machine learning, statistical, and mathematical analysis incorporating heterogeneous and complex data types independently based on milestone assignments from senior staff.

o Contribute to assessing and implementing computational, algorithmic, and predictive analytics approaches to address assigned biomedical research questions in areas such as clinical decision support and population health surveillance

o Contribute to the experimental design, execution, test and critical evaluation of methods as applied to translational data science research projects.

o Use a flexible, analytical approach to extract optimal value from biomedical data.

o Contribute to design and conduct of continuous validation plans for production systems that incorporate models and algorithms, providing guidelines and support for large-scale implementation.

o Contribute to the creation, adoption, and adherence to best practice methodologies for performing data analysis and predictive modeling experiments.

2. Project Definition & Management

• Prepares project plan (including scope, inventory list etc.) for both departmental projects and larger scale departmental/divisional initiatives.

• Monitors ongoing project “progress-to-plan” and takes ownership of milestones, functional/technical documentation, and follow-up.

• Regularly reports on project status to the Data Science Manager and other customers as needed.

• Conducts information audits and develops and manages electronic resources.

• Meets with CHOP staff, clients, and others to determine specific project needs as required and advises on end-user support systems.

3. Project Documentation and Training

• Produces (or supervises the production of) detailed documentation for all assigned data projects – documents all projects fully and completely.

• Ensures appropriate metadata are developed and recorded.

• Circulation of current information issues to staff.

• Writing and editing technical reports.

• Trains colleagues and clients how to use specific information systems.

Required Licenses, Certifications, Registrations

None

Required Education and Experience

• Masters training in Computer Science, Information Systems, Statistics, Mathematics, Biostatistics, or another quantitative science field. • Non-degree graduate coursework such as a graduate certificate in Analytics, Statistics, or Data Science strongly preferred. • 3 or more years of relevant experience is required. • Experience with the integration of large and complex data sets. • 3 or more years of experience with applied data science: statistics, machine learning, or mathematical modeling projects.


Additional Technical Requirements

• Exhibits a strong “entrepreneurial” spirit including, but not limited to, accepting ownership of complex tasks with little supervision and dealing well with ambiguous situations.

• Experience on acquiring new technical/analytic skills and domain knowledge to support successful contribution to research and development projects is required.

• Demonstrated knowledge of relational databases, complex data integration, and database design.

• Excellent knowledge with database management systems SQL (Postgres, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server) and OLAP implementations.

• Experience using existing machine learning and analytic tools such as ScikitLearn, Weka, R, and H2O in either applied educational or professional projects is required.

• Experience writing code in either applied educational or professional projects using one or more of the following languages: Python, Scala, Java is required.

• Strong interest in database management, data mining and business analysis.

• Interest in healthcare, although experience in healthcare not essential.

• Strong problem solving and critical thinking skills.

• Very good oral and written communication skills.

• Ability to document procedures and create user instructions, and develop policies and procedures in regard projects.

• Ability to perform work that is detailed and routine.

• Ability to work under stress and meet deadlines.

• Demonstrates creativity in problem solving.

• Team Oriented. Must be able to work effectively with complex and multiple teams simultaneously.