Epic Patient Flow & Capacity Management - Managing Consultant

Guidehouse • Chicago, IL

4d • $118,000 - $196,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Guidehouse’s Health Technology Consulting team helps healthcare organizations improve clinical operations, financial performance, patient experience, and workforce effectiveness through better use of enterprise technology. Our EHR practice supports health systems across strategy, implementation, optimization, adoption, and value realization.
The Managing Consultant will lead Epic patient flow and capacity management engagements for hospitals and health systems. This role requires deep knowledge of Epic Grand Central and the operational processes that govern patient placement, transfers, bed management, environmental services, transport, discharge progression, and enterprise capacity management.
The Managing Consultant will work directly with hospital executives, operational leaders, clinicians, informatics teams, and application teams to design practical solutions that improve throughput and the use of available capacity. The individual must be able to connect operational policy, staffing models, governance, workflows, Epic configuration, reporting, and adoption.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree obtained from an accredited college or university.
• Minimum of five years of relevant experience in EHR implementation, optimization, healthcare technology, patient flow operations, or a related field.
• Epic Grand Central certification or prior certification with the ability to obtain or renew certification within an agreed period.
• Demonstrated experience leading Epic Grand Central implementation, optimization, upgrade, stabilization, or operational improvement work.
• Strong understanding of hospital patient flow, bed management, transfers, environmental services, patient transport, discharge progression, and capacity management.
• Experience leading project teams, application teams, operational workgroups, or major project workstreams.
• Experience developing and managing project plans, deliverables, risks, issues, dependencies, and client decisions.
• Ability to facilitate complex discussions involving operational, clinical, technical, and executive stakeholders.
• Ability to convert operational problems into clear workflow, technology, governance, and measurement recommendations.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting recommendations to senior leaders.
• Consulting experience or significant client-facing experience in a healthcare organization, EHR vendor, or healthcare technology environment.
• Ability to travel up to 50% based on client and project requirements.
• Ability to support major implementation and go-live activities, which may occasionally occur outside standard business hours.

Nice To Haves

• Seven or more years of relevant healthcare technology or patient flow experience.
• Additional Epic certification or experience in Prelude, Cadence, ASAP, EpicCare Inpatient, OpTime, Rover, Cogito, or related applications.
• Experience establishing or optimizing a health system capacity command center.
• Experience with transfer centers, centralized patient placement, enterprise bed management, or multi-hospital capacity coordination.
• Operational leadership experience in hospital operations, nursing operations, patient placement, transfer center, environmental services, or transport.
• Experience with large academic medical centers, integrated delivery networks, pediatric hospitals, or multi-state health systems.
• Experience developing patient flow dashboards, capacity measures, escalation criteria, and executive performance reporting.
• Experience with clinical systems integration, real-time location services, communication platforms, or third-party capacity management technologies.
• Lean, Six Sigma, project management, nursing, clinical informatics, or healthcare administration credentials.
• Experience supporting business development, proposal preparation, solution design, or client account growth.

Responsibilities

• Lead Epic Grand Central implementation, optimization, assessment, and stabilization engagements.
• Assess current patient flow operations, system configuration, decision rights, performance data, and organizational constraints.
• Design future-state workflows for bed requests, bed assignment, patient placement, transfers, level-of-care changes, environmental services, patient transport, discharge progression, and capacity escalation.
• Advise clients on centralized and decentralized patient placement models, transfer center operations, bed management responsibilities, escalation pathways, and capacity governance.
• Support the design or optimization of capacity command centers, including operating models, roles, decision authority, escalation thresholds, communication processes, technology, and performance measures.
• Lead the design and validation of Epic Grand Central functionality, including patient movement, bed planning, bed boards, unit and room configuration, transfer workflows, environmental services, transport, discharge status, and related operational tools.
• Evaluate dependencies across Epic Grand Central, Prelude, Cadence, ASAP, EpicCare Inpatient, OpTime, Rover, Cogito, reporting tools, interfaces, and third-party capacity management solutions.
• Translate operational requirements into system design decisions, build specifications, workflow documentation, testing scenarios, and implementation plans.
• Lead integrated testing, workflow validation, clinical and operational simulations, cutover planning, training readiness, go-live support, and post-live stabilization.
• Develop recommendations to reduce avoidable patient delays, emergency department boarding, transfer friction, bed turnaround time, and unnecessary variation in patient placement.
• Establish performance measures and reporting requirements related to occupancy, throughput, length of stay, discharge progression, bed turnaround, transport response, transfer acceptance, and capacity constraints.
• Facilitate working sessions with nursing, hospital operations, transfer center, environmental services, transport, emergency department, procedural, ancillary, and technology leaders.
• Communicate findings, risks, recommendations, and decisions to senior client leaders in a clear and direct manner.
• Manage project scope, workplans, deliverables, risks, issues, dependencies, timelines, and team assignments.
• Lead and develop consultants and client team members through structured coaching, review, and feedback.
• Support proposal development, solution design, level-of-effort estimates, presentations, and other practice development activities.
• Develop reusable methods, tools, assessments, and points of view for the Guidehouse EHR practice.

Benefits

• Medical, Rx, Dental & Vision Insurance
• Personal and Family Sick Time & Company Paid Holidays
• Parental Leave and Adoption Assistance
• 401(k) Retirement Plan
• Basic Life & Supplemental Life
• Health Savings Account, Dental/Vision & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts
• Short-Term & Long-Term Disability
• Student Loan PayDown
• Tuition Reimbursement, Personal Development & Learning Opportunities
• Skills Development & Certifications
• Employee Referral Program
• Corporate Sponsored Events & Community Outreach
• Emergency Back-Up Childcare Program
• Mobility Stipend

What This Job Offers

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