Clinical Informatics & Ontology Lead

Inovalon•Bowie, MD

3d•Onsite

About The Position

The Clinical Informatics & Ontology Lead will serve as the enterprise subject matter expert for clinical terminology, semantic normalization, ontology strategy, and clinical concept governance within the Enterprise Data Informatics team, reporting directly to the AVP, Informatics. This role is responsible for leading the design, governance, and operationalization of clinical ontologies, reference data, value sets, and terminology services that underpin Inovalon's real-world data products, data normalization strategy, and data quality framework.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in healthcare data, clinical informatics, terminology management, ontology governance, clinical data normalization, or a related field with a Bachelor's degree required; or 7+ years of experience in healthcare data, clinical informatics, terminology management, ontology governance, clinical data normalization, or a related field with a Master's degree required.
Deep hands-on expertise with ICD-10-CM, CPT, HCPCS, SNOMED CT, LOINC, RxNorm, clinical concept modeling, value sets, crosswalks, and terminology lifecycle management required.
Proficiency with SQL for querying, profiling, validating, and investigating large-scale healthcare datasets, including EHR, claims, RWD, and normalized clinical data assets.
Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, or governing clinical normalization workflows, semantic mappings, terminology services, reference tables, and/or ontology management platforms.
Ability to translate complex terminology and ontology decisions for product, engineering, clinical, governance, and executive stakeholders; ability to document decisions clearly and drive cross-functional alignment.
Ability to manage multiple terminology, normalization, and product-support workstreams in a fast-paced, agile environment while maintaining strong version control, decision traceability, and prioritization discipline.
Bachelor's Degree in Health Informatics, Medical Informatics, Clinical Informatics, Computer Science, Health Information Management, Nursing, Pharmacy, Medicine, or a related field required.

Nice To Haves

Master's Degree in Medical Informatics, Health Informatics, Clinical Informatics, Biomedical Informatics, or a related discipline preferred.
Relevant professional certifications or credentials, such as AHIC, CPHIMS, RHIA, CCS, CHDA, terminology/ontology training, or equivalent experience, a plus.

Responsibilities

Lead the strategy, governance, and maintenance of clinical ontologies and terminology assets, including ICD-10-CM, CPT, HCPCS, SNOMED CT, LOINC, RxNorm, and internal reference tables, ensuring accuracy, currency, traceability, and alignment with data product needs.
Serve as the primary Informatics lead for normalization and terminology services; translate business, clinical, and product requirements into terminology configuration, mapping, and implementation priorities.
Lead and refine clinical normalization approaches for structured, semi-structured, and unstructured healthcare data, ensuring that source data are mapped to standardized codified elements with clinical fidelity and reusable governance.
Collaborate closely with Data Engineering, Product, and Clinical teams to ensure that data specifications are accurately implemented, and downstream data products reflect high-fidelity source data.
Define terminology-driven data quality rules, semantic validation checks, and normalization benchmarks; partner with the Data Quality & Analytics team to identify gaps, drift, obsolete codes, mapping failures, and downstream product impacts.
Lead Informatics input into the migration of legacy reference tables to scalable terminology services, ontology management workflows, and, where applicable, knowledge graph capabilities.
Evaluate new and existing data assets for clinical depth, code specificity, normalization readiness, and semantic fit for real-world data (RWD) and related products; prepare structured recommendations for leadership review.
Maintain documentation of ontology decisions, mapping assumptions, value set definitions, version changes, and downstream dependencies to support auditability, release readiness, and cross-functional transparency.
Maintain compliance with Inovalon's policies, procedures, and mission statements.
Adhere to all confidentiality and HIPAA requirements as outlined within Inovalon's Operating Policies and Procedures in all ways and at all times with respect to any aspect of the data handled or services rendered in the undertaking of the position.
Fulfill those responsibilities and/or duties that may be reasonably provided by Inovalon for the purpose of achieving operational and financial success of the Company.
Uphold responsibilities relative to the separation of duties for applicable processes and procedures within your job function.