The newly formed Experience Research team is looking for an experienced Research Lead to join us in designing the future of people-centered healthcare.

This role can be located in Austin, Chicago, or St. Louis.

Background

Ascension, one of the largest non-profit healthcare systems in the United States, has established an in-house, interdisciplinary Research team tasked with shaping the experience strategy and design for digital products and technology-enabled services across the entire spectrum of care delivery. This team – in deep collaboration with colleagues in design, product management, engineering, data science, clinical operations, and more – uses human-centered design methods to understand the needs and motivations of our patients and clinicians and bring solutions to life.

The Experience Research team is responsible for understanding end-to-end patient and provider journeys, challenges, and unmet needs to identify the most impactful opportunities for us to address. As a comprehensive healthcare system that includes a vast range of healthcare services, this could include the design of virtual care delivery, nurse communications, remote health monitoring, operating room operations, financial transparency and payment, care coordination, member health benefits, and more.

Our research team, comprised of User Experience Researchers, Service Designers and Communications Designers, aspires to create seamless, end-to-end experiences for those we serve through a cohesive ecosystem of well-designed, user-friendly services, products, and applications. From problem discovery to product delivery, we put people at the center of everything we do.

#ascensionstudio

What You Will Do
 

As a Research Lead, you will be at the forefront of the transformation of healthcare by identifying the most meaningful patient and clinician needs for our teams to address. You will help scope, lead and oversee multiple research projects with varying levels of complexity to shape design, product and service strategy. You will work collaboratively with an interdisciplinary team of designers and product managers on field research, concept envisioning, and iterative testing across a wide range of initiatives such as addressing social determinants of health, improving the daily experience of clinical providers, streamlining access to healthcare services, or supporting individuals with chronic conditions, to name a few.

Deep knowledge of research methods and experience applying a mixed-methods research approach for digital products and services are critical to this role. As a subject matter expert you will mentor other researchers, designers and product managers to help scale the practice of research. You will be part of a growing team and will help drive research excellence through industry best practices. Using powerful insight-to-impact stories and innovation workshops you will evangelize the value of a human-centered design approach in the organization by helping demonstrate measurable impact that Experience Research has on outcomes. 

Please include a link to your portfolio in your application.

Responsibilities

• Scope and lead discovery for ambiguous strategic research projects in collaboration with design and product teams
• Identify opportunities, plan, and conduct exploratory, evaluative and summative research studies throughout the product lifecycle
• Gather and synthesize data into actionable insights and disseminate findings to various teams through reports, presentations and other artifacts
• Oversee and guide research efforts led by other internal team members, external contractors and partners
• Collaborate with research leadership on establishing research operations and processes
• Drive research excellence by institutionalizing tools, methodologies and best practices
• Evangelize the value of human-centered research and design by demonstrating impact on user and business outcomes
• Facilitate innovation workshops and envisioning exercises with cross-functional stakeholders based on opportunities identified through research

What You Will Need
 

Education:

• High school diploma/GED with 2 years of experience, or Associate's degree, or Bachelor's degree
  required.

Work Experience:

• 3 years of experience required.
• 5 years of experience preferred.
• 1 year of leadership or management experience preferred.

Additional Preferences
 

• Strong knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and their application throughout the product lifecycle
• Experience with scoping, leading and overseeing multiple research projects of varying complexity for digital products and services.
• Experience conducting ethnography, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, contextual field visits, workflow analysis, usability testing, and human factors studies
• Strong knowledge of user-centered design principles
• Working knowledge of statistical methods
• Strong ability to work independently as well as in groups
• Willingness to travel (in the future)

Why Join Our Team
 

Ascension is a faith-based healthcare organization dedicated to transformation through innovation across the continuum of care. As one of the leading non-profit and Catholic health systems in the U.S., Ascension is committed to delivering compassionate, personalized care to all. In FY2020, Ascension provided $2.4 billion in care of persons living in poverty and other community benefit programs. Ascension includes more than 160,000 associates and 40,000 aligned providers across a national network of ministries. We offer rewarding careers across more than 2,600 sites of care – including 146 hospitals and more than 50 senior living facilities – in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

Equal Employment Opportunity Employer
 

Ascension is an equal opportunity employer (EEO) and affords equal opportunity to all associates and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, veteran status, genetic data, or other legally protected status.

For further information regarding your EEO rights, click on the following link to the “EEO is the Law” poster:

http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/eeopost.pdf

EEO is the Law Poster Supplement

Please note that Ascension will make an offer of employment only to individuals who have applied for a position using our official application. Be on alert for possible fraudulent offers of employment. Ascension will not solicit money or banking information from applicants.

This employer participates in the Electronic Employment Verification Program. Please click the E-Verify link below for more information.