Quality Improvement Analyst III

Louisiana Public Health Institute•New Orleans, LA

6d•$95,000 - $130,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Quality Improvement Analyst supports the Louisiana Quality Network (LQN), a multi-site network of health systems participating in the Louisiana Department of Health’s Managed Care Incentive Payment (MCIP) program. This role serves as the primary analytic and data operations lead for LQN, with responsibility for supporting standardized data extraction, data quality assurance, measure calculation, and reporting across participating hospitals. The Quality Improvement Analyst works closely with hospital partners, LPHI data engineering staff, and LSU Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) collaborators to ensure the secure receipt, validation, and analysis of clinical and administrative data used for quality improvement and incentive reporting. A core function of the role is providing technical guidance to health systems to ensure data submissions meet specification requirements and support accurate, reproducible measure calculation. The position requires strong technical skills in SQL and healthcare data analysis, as well as practical experience with clinical quality improvement, particularly in Medicaid and Medicare-related programs. The Quality Improvement Analyst participates in cross-organizational coordination, contributes to documentation and reporting deliverables, and supports the ongoing operation and refinement of the LQN data infrastructure.

Requirements

A master’s degree in epidemiology, informatics, statistics, health services research or a related field
8+ years of experience supporting clinical quality improvement initiatives in healthcare or a related sector
Proficiency in at least one statistical or analytic programming language (SAS, Python, or R)
Proficiency in SQL and experience working with relational database management systems
Experience developing analytic outputs or dashboards using data visualization tools
Experience analyzing electronic health records and/or claims data
Working knowledge of clinical quality measurement, including measures relevant to Medicaid and/or Medicare programs
Familiarity with healthcare data privacy and security requirements, including HIPAA
Strong commitment to LPHI’s Strategic Plan Priorities, Mission, Vision and Values
Ability to demonstrate LPHI's Core Competencies
Ability to work collaboratively with colleagues and partners
High emotional intelligence, including experience working with individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds
Demonstrated practice of a learning orientation
Ability to champion and manage change
Ability to deliver with quality and impact, including attention to detail, while meeting deadlines and milestones
Demonstrated ability to apply systems thinking and act strategically
Strong written and oral communication skills
Professional credibility and demonstrated ability to garner trust and confidence among team members and organizational leadership
Knowledge of Human Subjects Protection and HIPAA requirements
Excellent working knowledge of statistical programming languages and statistical applications, particularly related to predictive modeling
Experience with relational database management systems, particularly Microsoft SQL Server
Proficiency in understanding and application of SQL, R, SAS, Python, and data visualization software

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting managed care incentive programs, value-based payment programs, or quality reporting initiatives
Proficiency with Microsoft Power BI
Experience working within complex healthcare organizations such as hospitals, health systems, or health plans
Familiarity with healthcare coding systems (e.g., ICD-10, CPT, HCPCS, LOINC)
Experience working in or directly supporting clinical environments
Prior experience supporting Clinical HIT products, including EHR systems
Ability to work in the New Orleans area

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary analytic and data operations lead for the Louisiana Quality network (LQN) project.
Develop, document, and maintain technical specifications for standardized data extracts submitted by participating health systems.
Provide technical assistance to hospital partners on data extraction, formatting, and submission to support accurate measure calculation.
Identify, document and resolve data quality issues related to completeness, validity, and consistency of submitted data.
Design and guide implementation of data quality checks, business rules, and validation processes in collaboration with data engineering staff.
Support the development and maintenance of a standardized data model to use for clinical quality measure calculation.
Design, validate, and maintain analytic metrics derived from ingested clinical and administrative data, including cohort definitions, quality indicators, and longitudinal measures, with attention to reproducibility, versioning, and cross-site comparability.
Develop routine and ad hoc reporting products, including dashboards in Power BI, summary tables, and analytic extracts, to support internal monitoring, external reporting, and contract deliverables; ensure results are interpretable, well-documented, and aligned with partner requirements.
Work closely with data engineering teams to ensure data extracts are ingested, validated and allow for clinical quality measure calculation.
Serve as a technical liaison between LPHI, LSUHSC, participating health systems, and data engineering vendor.
Provide regular updates on data intake status, data quality findings, and analytic deliverables.
Collaborate with data engineering, analytics, and business intelligence staff to define and apply data standards and best practices.
Lead day-to-day coordination for the LQN project as the primary analytic and partner management support.
Coordinate work across multiple partners (hospital partners, LPHI data engineering, LSUHSC collaborators, and vendors) to keep data submissions and deliverables moving.
Manage timelines and deliverables for data intake and reporting.
Facilitate stakeholder communication by providing regular updates and serving as a technical liaison between organizations.
Drive issue management and resolution, identifying, documenting, and resolving data quality issues (completeness, validity, consistency).

Benefits

LPHI contributes 7% of pre-tax salary to the employees’ 401k per pay period regardless of employee contribution, after six continuous months of employment
100% paid premiums for employee health (Core plan), dental, short-term disability, long-term disability and term life insurance beginning on the first day of the month, on or following one month of full-time employment
100% paid Employee Assistance Program
100% paid parking at 601 Tchoupitoulas Parking Garage
Traditional, flexible, or compressed work schedules
Resources committed to professional development
15+ paid holidays per year that includes Thanksgiving Break and Winter Break
10 vacation days accrued per year, years 0-2
15 vacation days accrued per year, years 3-5
20 vacation days accrued per year, year 6+
3 personal days
1 floating holiday (employee’s choice)
12 sick days