Manager, EHR Platform Operations Full-time NEW

Manager, EHR Platform Operations

Hiring Department: Dell Medical School

Position Open To: All Applicants

Weekly Scheduled Hours: 40

FLSA Status: Exempt from FLSA

Earliest Start Date: Immediately

Position Duration: Expected to Continue

Location: AUSTIN, TX

General Notes

The Manager, EHR Platform Operations, provides operational leadership, governance, and technical program management for the Epic platform across production and non-production environments. This role establishes and sustains disciplined practices for release, change control, access and provisioning, upgrades, maintenance, testing, and downtime that protect patient safety, security, operational continuity, and platform reliability. The Manager leads the Epic Platform Management and Governance function and coordinates work across Epic application teams, infrastructure, security, provisioning and access, integration, clinical applications, service management, training and communications, and external partners, combining strong Epic technical knowledge with project management discipline, operational awareness, and executive presence. Reporting to the Director, Biomedical Systems & Enterprise Interoperability, the Manager establishes policy, challenges unsafe or incomplete changes, and holds teams accountable to approved standards across the platform lifecycle.

Responsibilities

Manages Epic Platform & Environment Strategy

• Develops and maintains the Epic environment strategy across production and non-production systems.
• Provides governance for Data Courier pathways, build promotion, and release readiness.
• Maintains operational awareness of Epic infrastructure, hosting, and technical dependencies.
• Tracks platform versions, upgrade levels, patches, and lifecycle risks.
• Ensures environment documentation supports configuration, upgrade planning, and disaster recovery.

Leads Epic Upgrades, Updates & Maintenance

• Plans and manages quarterly Epic upgrades, monthly Special Updates, and infrastructure maintenance.
• Develops integrated upgrade plans covering milestones, testing, risk decisions, and rollback strategies.
• Coordinates Epic, infrastructure, integration, security, and vendor teams to ensure readiness.
• Leads readiness reviews, go-live coordination, and post-implementation review.
• Ensures patient-safety, security, and clinical workflow impacts are escalated before go-live.

Establishes Change Control & Release Governance

• Designs and implements a risk-tiered change-control model for Epic and related clinical technology changes.
• Consolidates multiple CAB and change-control processes into one governance model with defined scope and decision rights.
• Defines change tiers and the approvals, testing, rollback, and communication requirements for each tier.
• Establishes release authorization and sign-off practices and ensures change packages include implementation and rollback evidence.
• Defers, rejects, or escalates changes that do not meet established safety, security, or readiness standards.

Ensures Testing Governance & Production Validation

• Manages the Epic Testing Coordinator and the enterprise testing approach for upgrades and platform changes.
• Ensures test plans cover application, integration, infrastructure, security, and end-to-end validation.
• Defines testing evidence and sign-off requirements by change-risk tier.
• Establishes post-production validation expectations, ownership, and issue escalation.

Oversees Provisioning, Access & Security Operations

• Provides management oversight for Epic provisioning and access operations and service levels.
• Connects provisioning and access activities to onboarding, role changes, and upgrade readiness.
• Coordinates urgent patient-safety and security access escalations with clinical and security leaders.
• Partners with Information Security to maintain access governance and remediate identified risks.

Coordinates Incident & Downtime Response

• Coordinates platform-level response for unplanned Epic downtime and significant platform incidents.
• Establishes escalation criteria and operational playbooks for high-impact production events.
• Connects incident learnings back to problem management, change control, and future release planning.
• Maintains operational awareness of how platform decisions affect clinical workflows and end users.

Provides Technical Program Management

• Provides technical program management and governance for Epic platform initiatives and cross-functional efforts.
• Develops project plans, RAID logs, dependencies, and executive-level status reporting.
• Facilitates cross-team discussions, drives decisions to closure, and escalates material risks.
• Partners with Intake and portfolio governance to assess readiness for new Epic-related initiatives.

Leads Platform Policy & Stakeholder Governance

• Serves as the operational service owner for the Epic platform across its full lifecycle.
• Develops and maintains policies, standards, and governance artifacts for platform operations.
• Chairs Epic platform, release, environment, and change-governance forums.
• Communicates effectively with technical teams, clinical stakeholders, vendors, and executive leadership.
• Develops metrics and reporting on release quality, change success, and platform operational maturity.

Marginal or Periodic Functions

• Participates in disaster recovery and business continuity planning for the Epic platform.
• Attends Epic user group meetings, vendor briefings, and industry conferences.
• Assists with documentation and knowledge management efforts as needed.
• Supports integration of Epic with other enterprise and third-party systems as needed.
• Performs other related duties as required.
• Adheres to internal controls and reporting structure.
• Performs related duties as required.

Knowledge/Skills/Abilities

Technical Learning

• Quickly learns new Epic technical and infrastructure systems and applies knowledge effectively.
• Masters Epic environment, release, and platform architecture concepts rapidly.
• Applies technical knowledge to resolve complex platform and infrastructure issues.
• Coaches others on Epic technical operations and platform governance.

Process Management

• Designs and improves release, change-control, and testing processes.
• Streamlines Epic upgrade and maintenance workflows for operational efficiency.
• Identifies process gaps and implements governance solutions.
• Standardizes change and release practices across teams.

Decision Quality

• Makes sound decisions based on risk analysis and stakeholder input.
• Evaluates platform changes for patient-safety, security, and operational impact.
• Balances technical risk with clinical and business priorities.
• Uses metrics and evidence to guide go/no-go decisions.

Managing and Measuring Work

• Sets clear objectives and tracks team and platform performance.
• Defines KPIs for release quality, change success, and platform reliability.
• Conducts regular reviews and feedback sessions with the platform team.
• Adjusts goals and priorities based on organizational needs.

Customer Focus

• Understands and meets the needs of technical, clinical, and operational stakeholders.
• Engages application and clinical leaders in platform planning and governance.
• Responds promptly to escalations and stakeholder concerns.
• Improves platform reliability and safety through disciplined operations.

Conflict Management

• Resolves disagreements between technical and operational stakeholders constructively.
• Mediates between Epic application, infrastructure, and security teams.
• Addresses vendor and partner disputes diplomatically.
• Builds consensus on platform changes and governance standards.

Required Qualifications

• Requires a Bachelor's Degree in information technology, computer science, healthcare informatics, engineering, business, project management, or a related field with at least 5 year(s) of experience.
• 5 years of progressively responsible experience supporting or