Research Referrals and Enrollment Optimization Lead

Cardiovascular Associates of America

14d • Remote

About The Position

The Research Referrals and Enrollment Optimization Lead is a research operations leader responsible for developing, implementing, and continuously optimizing a network-wide strategy for patient recruitment, referrals, and enrollment into cardiovascular clinical research studies across CVAUSA practices.

Reporting to the Director of Research, this role leads a critical body of work within Cardiovascular Research Solutions: building a recruitment and enrollment playbook and ensuring its effective execution across sites. This individual will work closely with practice leadership, research staff, sponsors, CROs, and CVAUSA’s central research team to evaluate current recruitment performance, implement proven strategies, and build the infrastructure and teams required to consistently meet and exceed enrollment goals for CVAUSA’s portfolio of cardiovascular clinical research studies.

The ideal candidate brings deep experience optimizing recruitment and enrollment across multisite research programs, strong familiarity with late-stage trial operations, and the ability to lead both strategy and execution in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree.
• 5+ years of experience leading or optimizing patient recruitment and enrollment within a multisite clinical research network, CRO, or sponsor environment.
• Deep understanding of proven recruitment, referral, and retention strategies for late-stage clinical trials.
• Strong familiarity with use of EHR tools, data analytics, and technology-enabled recruitment approaches.
• Experience working directly with research sites to evaluate and improve recruitment performance.
• Demonstrated ability to build and lead teams executing complex operational strategies.
• Solid understanding of Phase II–IV clinical trial organization and startup processes.
• Willingness and ability to travel approximately 25% nationally.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in cardiovascular clinical research strongly preferred.
• Prior experience working with community-based or private practice research networks.
• Experience partnering with marketing, communications, or patient engagement teams in a regulated research environment.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain a network-wide recruitment, referrals, and enrollment playbook for cardiovascular clinical research.
• Identify and standardize proven strategies to optimize patient identification, outreach, enrollment, and retention across diverse practice settings.
• Develop scalable approaches that can be adapted to both less experienced and highly experienced research sites.
• Develop approaches to use data analytics, EHR-based search tools, and other technologies to identify eligible patients for active studies.
• Partner with internal teams and vendors to design workflows that integrate recruitment efforts into routine clinical care.
• Establish best practices for patient outreach, follow-up, and engagement to maximize conversion from referral to enrollment.
• Work directly with CVAUSA practices to assess current recruitment performance and identify gaps or barriers to enrollment.
• Support sites in designing and implementing customized recruitment and referral strategies aligned with study requirements and local market dynamics.
• Provide hands-on guidance and performance feedback to help sites improve enrollment consistency and sustainability.
• Develop and support strategies for engaging community partners and referral sources to increase research awareness and referrals.
• Partner with marketing and communications resources to support patient-facing recruitment materials and campaigns, as appropriate.
• Promote ethical, compliant, and patient-centered recruitment approaches across the network.
• Establish best practices to support participant retention and study completion.
• Promote strategies that enhance the patient experience while maintaining protocol adherence and data quality.
• Build, lead, and mentor a team responsible for executing recruitment and referral strategies across the network.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Partner closely with CVAUSA’s central research leadership, site operations leaders, business development, and sponsors/CROs.
• Contribute to network-level research strategy and enrollment planning for new trials.
• Serve as a subject-matter expert in patient recruitment and enrollment within the cardiovascular research ecosystem.

Benefits

• This role offers a unique opportunity to design and lead one of the most impactful functions in a national cardiovascular research network: ensuring that the right patients are identified, engaged, and enrolled in high-quality clinical research.
• You will work alongside a mission-driven central research team while supporting practices on the front lines of patient care.
• At CVAUSA, your work will directly shape how clinical trials are staffed, supported, and successfully enrolled—accelerating the development of new cardiovascular therapies and expanding patient access to cutting-edge care.

What This Job Offers

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