Behavioral Health Data Scientist (Human Services Data Scientist)

King County•Chinook Building 401 5th Avenue Seattle, WA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Performance Measurement and Evaluation Unit within the Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) is seeking a savvy Data Scientist to join their team of analytic experts. This Data Scientist position is centrally located within the Performance Measurement and Evaluation (PME) unit of the DCHS Director's Office and will support the data and evaluation needs of the Behavioral Health and Recovery Division (BHRD). PME is a unit of dedicated and talented data scientists and evaluators who provide evaluation expertise, data management, and analytics across DCHS programs. PME collaborates with staff and community partners to design frameworks, measure outcomes, and drive continuous improvement. By fostering data-driven decision-making and sharing findings through reports and dashboards, PME strengthens equity and service effectiveness. BHRD provides high-quality behavioral health services to help ensure people with mental health and substance use disorders receive the services they need. The specific focus of this Data Scientist role will be supporting BHRD's crisis and commitment services, including programs or services designed to provide intervention, outreach, or prevention all along the crisis continuum, and activities funded by the Crisis Care Center Initiative. The role involves partnering with evaluators, program managers, and other DCHS partners to develop sophisticated tracking measures and dashboards, utilize administrative databases, create shared analytic tools, conduct advanced quantitative analyses, and prepare reports that inform the operation of the behavioral healthcare system in King County.

Requirements

Demonstrated relevant work experience (typically 5 years), or an equivalent combination of education and work experience in finance, social sciences, statistics, public health, behavioral health, or a related field with course work in research methods and statistics and/or equivalent education and experience.
Knowledge of equity and social justice principles and practices; lived experience with and/or understanding of the effect of place-, race- and policy & systems inequities on communities and populations.
Extensive expertise working with large SQL databases and writing queries using structured query language (SQL).
Experience with data management, analysis, and visualization tools, such as SQL, R, Excel, SAS, Python, and Tableau.
Demonstrated experience conducting statistical analyses and preparing dashboards, reports, and presentations for non-technical audiences.
Ability to develop a strong understanding of the key business processes, financial drivers and programmatic features reflected in the administrative data.
Experience working with medical or behavioral health claims or encounter data.
Experience extracting, matching, cleaning, managing, and validating data.
Superb attention to detail.
Strong analytical thinking skills.
Strong oral and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate well with diverse groups including division leaders and executive leadership internally and externally.
Strong problem solving and interpersonal skills, including the ability to work independently and maintain collaborative relationships as part of a team.
Experience successfully managing complex projects, in detail, and meeting deadlines.

Nice To Haves

Expert skills in SQL and R, including developing tools and packages.
Experience working with version control systems, preferably Git/GitHub.
Knowledge of advanced analytics and sophisticated statistical modelling techniques to identify trends, patterns, and relationships in healthcare data.
Understanding of health and behavioral health measurement and management processes, indicators, and tools.

Responsibilities

Perform queries in structured query language (SQL) to extract, clean, and transform data from large, complex administrative databases to make tables for use in the production of performance measures, dashboards, and reports.
Serve as a subject matter expert in the technical specifications for key performance metrics, as well as understanding the complexities of various programs and how they are reflected in administrative data.
Develop standardized and streamlined processes using R and Git for producing several performance metrics on Tableau dashboards that can be used across BHRD bodies of work.
Perform complex data analyses, analyze trends, and construct key performance measures to improve King County’s behavioral health system for the benefit of its clients.
Lead work with internal and external partners to design, create, and maintain production of key performance indicators, reports, dashboards, and trend analyses to improve performance of King County’s behavioral health and crisis systems.
Work with stakeholders to identify data needs to support initiatives, improve quality, monitor performance, and assess impacts.
Develop tools to streamline key performance indicators and automation techniques to highlight actual performance change and identify any data system changes or data quality issues.
Work independently to manipulate, analyze, and interpret data using appropriate statistical methods and data manipulation tools.
Develop interactive dashboards, charts, reports, and presentations that visually represent key findings for non-technical audiences and communicate results in a way that is actionable.
Drive towards the application of a racial equity and social justice lens across a wide variety of projects and work products.
Conduct written and verbal presentations that share insights and recommendations with audiences of varying levels of technical sophistication.
As needed, participate in team, work group, division, and department meetings.
Respond to other data requests and perform other related duties as assigned.