Clinical Applications Director, Oncology, Transplant & Therapeutic Services

Stanford Health Care • Palo Alto, CA

74d • $94 - $125 • Onsite

About The Position

The Clinical Applications Director for Oncology, Transplant and Therapeutic Services will lead technology strategy and modernization for Oncology, Transplant, Pharmacy, and Specialty Diagnostics. This role spans Epic Beacon, Phoenix, BMT, Epic Willow, and specialty diagnostic applications across various clinical areas. The Director will navigate a complex landscape of specialty vendors, including those providing AI-enabled tools, and will own the vendor strategy, including contract and total cost of ownership decisions. This is a Stanford Health Care job.

The Director – IT Clinical Applications is accountable for the strategic direction, modernization, and full lifecycle management of technologies within an assigned application domain. This role leads a team of Managers and/or Senior Managers, translating enterprise technology strategy into domain-level execution, with a strong emphasis on modernizing the technology stack, reducing technical debt, and building long-range roadmaps that anticipate future clinical and operational needs rather than simply maintaining current-state systems. The Director champions responsible adoption of AI within their domain — identifying opportunities, ensuring appropriate guardrails and clinical validation, and aligning domain-level AI use with enterprise standards as the organization's AI governance model continues to take shape. This position reports to an Executive Director or Vice President, depending on area, and serves as a key advisor to IT and operational leaders on the health, direction, and modernization of their assigned systems.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in an applicable field required.
• Ten (10) years of progressively responsible and directly related work experience required, including prior leadership of Managers and/or Senior Managers.
• Experience in a health care provider setting is strongly preferred. Health care-adjacent or life sciences experience may be considered.
• Understanding of the assigned application domain and how it maps to clinical/business workflows and adjacent technical platforms.
• Frameworks for evaluating and prioritizing technical debt and modernization investment against operational risk and cost.
• AI tooling landscape relevant to the domain, and general principles of responsible AI use in a clinical setting.
• Information technology disciplines, e.g. network operations, databases, software applications and interfaces, production operations, quality assurance, and systems management.
• Principles and practices of organizational, fiscal, and personnel management.
• Project management processes and systems.
• Health care provider operations, and current issues and trends in health care technology.
• Local, state, and federal regulatory requirements related to the assigned domain.
• Principles and practices of workforce planning and capacity/demand management.
• Building a long-range roadmap based on application level roadmaps and translating it into sequenced, fundable initiatives.
• Building a business case for technical debt reduction or platform modernization in terms executives and clinical leaders will act on.
• Evaluating and negotiating vendor contracts and managing vendor service agreements.
• Coaching and developing Managers and Senior Managers.
• Effective written, verbal, instructional, and presentation communication with executives, physicians, and cross-functional teams.
• Managing complex projects and resources (people, cost, and time) across multiple sub-teams.
• Operating effectively under organizational ambiguity, including evolving governance structures, without losing forward momentum.
• Balancing investment in modernization against the need for day-to-day operational stability.
• Exercising sound judgment on AI adoption risk in the absence of fully mature enterprise governance.
• Fostering effective working relationships and building consensus across departments and external vendors.
• Succeeding in demanding situations by balancing technical and business interests, remaining focused on objectives, and thriving under pressure.
• Handling confrontation and resolving disputes with professionalism and firmness.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s Degree preferred.
• Familiarity with emerging enterprise AI governance models in health care and how domain-level practice will likely need to adapt as they mature.
• Translating enterprise strategy into a domain-level, multi-quarter modernization plan.
• Leading a domain through a major modernization or legacy-replacement initiative from business case through delivery.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain a long-range roadmap for the assigned domain, balancing near-term delivery against technical debt reduction and platform modernization.
• Identify legacy systems, integrations, and processes carrying disproportionate risk, cost, or maintenance burden, and build the business case for remediation, consolidation, or replacement.
• Maintain direct knowledge of current and emerging capabilities of core platforms and adjacent point solutions relevant to the domain.
• Advise IT and Operations leaders on system status, roadmap tradeoffs, and modernization priorities.
• Identify and evaluate opportunities to apply AI within the domain, partnering with enterprise governance functions as they continue to mature.
• Ensure AI-enabled workflows within the domain are implemented responsibly, with appropriate human oversight, clinical validation, and risk review.
• Stay current on the AI tooling landscape relevant to the domain and bring forward recommendations for pilots, adoption, or retirement of existing tools.
• Lead, coach, and develop Managers and/or Senior Managers; set and measure performance objectives and provide regular one-on-one feedback.
• Hire, evaluate the performance of, and implement corrective action — up to and including termination — for assigned leaders.
• Build succession depth within the domain, developing Managers toward Senior Manager readiness and identifying future Director-level talent.
• Own the budget for the assigned domain, including the investment case for modernization and technical debt reduction; participate in enterprise portfolio budgeting.
• Forecast technology and staffing needs against the long-range roadmap.
• Evaluate and negotiate vendor contracts and manage vendor service agreements within the domain.
• Leveraging through Digital Success Partners and Platform Experts, guide requirements-gathering and solution-design activities, including workflow design, for the domain.
• Assist team to negotiate resolution of conflicting requirements across departments and IT portfolios.
• Participate in enterprise governance forums as they are established, representing the domain's needs, constraints, and modernization priorities.
• Define and implement procedures consistent with hospital and departmental policy. Monitor adherence.
• Own delivery and SLA outcomes for the domain's application suite; guide incident, problem, maintenance, and enhancement processes.
• Develop and publish domain-level metrics; drive continuous improvement, including measurable reduction of technical debt over time.
• Serve as incident commander for significant service disruptions within the domain.
• Ensure a high level of customer satisfaction among supported clinicians and staff.

Benefits

• Stanford Health Care sets a high standard for delivering value and an exceptional experience for our patients and families. Candidates for employment and existing employees must adopt and execute C-I-CARE standards for all of patients, families and towards each other. C-I-CARE is the foundation of Stanford’s patient-experience and represents a framework for patient-centered interactions. Simply put, we do what it takes to enable and empower patients and families to focus on health, healing and recovery.
• You will do this by executing against our three experience pillars, from the patient and family’s perspective: Know Me: Anticipate my needs and status to deliver effective care Show Me the Way: Guide and prompt my actions to arrive at better outcomes and better health Coordinate for Me: Own the complexity of my care through coordination
• Stanford Health Care (SHC) strongly values diversity and is committed to equal opportunity and non-discrimination in all of its policies and practices, including the area of employment. Accordingly, SHC does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity and/or expression, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, political beliefs, marital status, medical condition, genetic information, veteran status, or disability, or the perception of any of the above. People of all genders, members of all racial and ethnic groups, people with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply. Qualified applicants with criminal convictions will be considered after an individualized assessment of the conviction and the job requirements.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager