Medical Director, Clinical Quality Science

NCQA • Washington, DC

11h • $280,000 - $330,000

About The Position

NCQA is modernizing quality measurement by moving to a deliberately selected portfolio focused on outcomes and the priorities of patients and purchasers, built from digital clinical data, and transparent about measure accuracy and impact on care. The Medical Director, Clinical Quality Science is NCQA’s senior physician leader for clinical quality science, working alongside the CMO. The role builds a repeatable process for translating evolving clinical evidence and care-delivery realities into timely decisions about which measures NCQA should use, how they should change, and whether they accurately reflect and improve care. It strengthens and advises existing measurement leaders and teams through shared methods, mentoring, and clearer decision rights.

The role stewards NCQA’s measure portfolio, leads evidence reviews and recommendations, and assesses measure fidelity, validity, and effects. It develops clinical requirements and evaluation criteria for digital and AI-enabled measurement in partnership with NCQA’s informatics, product, AI, policy, and partnership leaders, who own those agendas. The position also engages clinical and patient stakeholders, represents NCQA in technical and policy settings, and contributes clinical content to publications and leadership materials.

Requirements

• MD, DO, or equivalent, with active or prior clinical practice.
• Board certification; primary care, internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, or preventive medicine is strongly preferred, while other specialties will be considered.
• 10+ years in healthcare quality, performance measurement, guideline development, health services research, or medical leadership in a health plan, health system, government agency, or research organization.
• Demonstrated skill in evidence synthesis and critical appraisal.
• Comfort with measurement concepts such as reliability, validity, attribution, and risk adjustment.
• Track record of strengthening teams through shared methods, mentoring, and clear decision processes.
• Ability to lead through influence in a matrixed organization.
• Excellent writing skills, including the ability to produce concise, decision-ready executive memos and technical documents for experts.
• Credibility with clinicians and plan leaders.

Nice To Haves

• MPH, MS, or equivalent training in epidemiology, health services research, informatics, or health policy; examples include National Clinician Scholars, VA Quality Scholars, and AHRQ/NRSA fellowship training.
• Experience developing or stewarding quality measures, such as HEDIS, CMS programs, or specialty-society measures, or serving on measure or guideline committees.
• Working knowledge of electronic clinical data and digital quality measurement, including EHR data, FHIR/USCDI, CQL, ECDS, and eCQMs.
• Experience evaluating AI/ML or NLP tools in clinical or quality settings.
• Peer-reviewed publication record.

Responsibilities

• Build and operate a repeatable process for translating changes in clinical guidelines, tests, therapies, and care delivery into documented recommendations on whether and how NCQA measures should respond.
• Lead structured evidence reviews and draft decision memos for the CMO, measurement committees, and the Committee on Performance Measurement concerning new measures, revisions, and retirements.
• Apply NCQA’s measure retirement and selection criteria to identify and document measures for renovation or retirement.
• Serve as clinical lead for the Portfolio Curation workgroup within the Modernizing Measurement initiative.
• Shape clinical concepts for under-measured domains, including person-centered outcomes, shared decision making, behavioral health, dementia, and patient experience.
• Assess whether measures accurately reflect care and improve it, including data-path artifacts, misattribution, gaming risk, unintended consequences, and post-implementation effectiveness.
• Build and coordinate a network of informatics partner systems to test measure feasibility and evaluate measure-output accuracy.
• Partner with Analysis & Evaluation and Clinical Informatics on data validity and measure evaluation.
• Support the Quality Solutions Group in pursuing funding to build required new measures.
• Co-develop shared methods for evidence review, clinical appraisal, and fidelity assessment with existing QMRG leaders and teams, and embed those methods in measure development and maintenance.
• Help clarify decision rights across clinical, methodological, and governance steps.
• Mentor measure developers and analysts in clinical reasoning and evidence appraisal, strengthening clinical capability across the team.
• Set clinical requirements for digital measures, including assessing clinical data capture in workflows, limitations of FHIR/USCDI and ECDS data, and accuracy requirements at different levels of data maturity.
• Define clinical evaluation criteria for AI-enabled services that could improve measurement or reduce its cost, and clinically review vendor evidence in partnership with NCQA leaders responsible for digital activation and vendor partnerships.
• Provide clinical input to NCQA’s work with CMS and states on digital quality measures.
• Engage clinicians, specialty societies, health plan medical and quality leaders, and patient/consumer voices to identify important outcomes and build consensus early in measure development.
• Represent NCQA in technical expert panels, measure committees, and federal and state discussions; present at conferences and webinars.
• Support clinical framing of longer-horizon work, including provider-level reporting and quality for AI use.
• Draft clinical sections of white papers, funder concept notes, board and leadership materials, and peer-reviewed manuscripts.

Benefits

• Annual incentive bonus, payable in accordance with policy.
• Employee benefit information is available through the employer’s benefits link; specific benefits are not listed in the posting.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree