Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Specialist (Reproductive Healthcare)

Position Summary

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Specialist is an exciting opportunity to help support Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning activities in close collaboration with Upstream’s practice transformation teams. The MEL Specialist will support efforts to collect and analyze Upstream program implementation data, as well as EHR-constructed measures and other data, both quantitative and qualitative. They will become an expert in using organizational data platform(s), leading data-informed discussions with internal practice transformation teams and external health care organization (HCO) teams for improvement, and synthesizing data to report learnings for both internal and external audiences. The MEL Specialist will support the Senior MEL Manager to monitor progress towards our outcomes and to use our findings to inform organizational strategy. Join a passionate, committed team as we implement our contraceptive care initiative nationwide.

 Essential Duties and Responsibilities

The MEL Specialist will perform a variety of analytical, operational, and administrative duties, including but not limited to: developing tools, analyses and reports that support initiative-wide monitoring and evaluation efforts; support efforts to collect, analyze and interpret Upstream program and EHR-derived  data; supporting the coordination and implementation of a virtual patient survey; supporting coordination of health center partner EHR connections with a third-party data vendor; becoming a “power user” of Upstream data platforms, coordinating meetings with internal and external stakeholders, and working with Upstream leadership to synthesize results for program improvement and reporting purposes. The MEL Specialist will work independently on projects and also work collaboratively within our team to handle a wide variety of dynamic activities.

Data Collection Management, Analysis, and Reporting

Under the direction of, and in concert with, the Director of Learning and Outcome Studies and our Sr Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager:

• Become an expert in using dashboards and reports from Upstream’s third-party data platform that houses aggregate patient data from HCO partner electronic health records (EHR) systems
• Identify and troubleshoot potential problems in HCO partner data, as detected in our third-party data platform vendor; collaborate with Upstream EHR Advisor and third-party vendor representatives to resolve identified issues
• Work with the recruitment team to explain the data platform benefits to potential health center partners and help persuade them to become an Upstream data user
• Serve as a primary point of contact for interpreting data trends related to contraceptive care program implementation for internal program team members and external agency partners including Upstream’s custom suite of contraceptive care measures.
• Conduct both single HCO and cross-HCO analyses using EHR-derived and program data
• Contribute to the critical analysis of Upstream’s suite of contraceptive care performance metrics and internal program data in order to provide recommendations for utilization of measures and monitoring data for performance improvement at the agency and cross-agency levels
• Produce actionable insights for HCO, and internal practice transformation team staff on Upstream intervention progress by regular review of agency EHR data and other data streams in collaboration with other MEL and program team colleagues
• Prepare quantitative and qualitative reports using PowerBI, Excel, Salesforce, Google Suite, and third party data platforms
• Develop or prepare innovative, succinct, and well-written summary reports, visualizations and presentations for both internal and external stakeholders about agency or cross-agency level progress and results
• Make presentations and recommendations to learning-through-data-feedback-loop forums in an effort to continually improve Upstream’s program.
• Work with the Director of Learning and Outcome Studies to develop data analysis methodologies for assessing program impact in partner agencies.

Team Communication

Under the direction of, and in concert with, the Director of Learning and Outcome Studies:

• Develop meeting agendas and materials, support facilitation and documentation of meetings with Practice Transformation Teams and other colleagues
• Contribute to the MEL Team by sharing updates on your work and integrating new methods and ideas shared by other team members

Other Responsibilities

• Scope, support and lead special projects as needed for the MEL team.
• Share research and analytical insights to wider MEL team for further analysis
• Additional duties as assigned.

Additional Attributes

• Confident and proactive self-starter able to take initiative and work well independently
• Collaborative; Works well with partners, teammates and cross-functional groups
• Curiosity about data and what we can learn from them
• Demonstrates a high degree of adaptability to work in a rapidly growing, post start-up organization
• Possesses excellent interpersonal skills. Builds and maintains positive, productive relationships with colleagues, staff, consultants, and contractors
• Solid work ethic and a team-oriented approach

Valued and Non-Essential Education, Experience, Knowledge, Skills and Ability (Not required to apply)

• Master’s-level degree in public health, health science or statistics field strongly preferred

Required Education, Experience, Knowledge, Skills and Ability

Upstream celebrates and fosters an inclusive work environment and encourages people of all identities, perspectives and backgrounds to apply.

 Our ideal candidate will demonstrate aptitude in the specified areas below:

• 4-6 years of relevant work experience post-undergraduate degree or 2-4 years of relevant experience plus a graduate professional degree in public health, epidemiology, data science, or health data-related field
• Experience in health care data analysis
• Experience in the field of sexual and reproductive health/family planning and/or primary care preferred
• Excellent interpersonal and meeting facilitation skills. Builds and maintains positive, productive relationships with colleagues, staff, consultants, and clients
• Superb communication skills, and demonstrated ability to function independently and professionally in a public-facing role, and with internal Upstream staff at all levels
• Knowledge of electronic health records (EHR) systems, health data systems or infrastructure is a plus
• Knowledge and basic experience in participating in quality improvement or performance improvement initiatives and/or managing population health analytics in the health care setting
• Experience with data-visualization and related tools (e.g. Tableau, PowerBI, etc)
• Confidence working independently, exercising good judgment, and making informed decisions with limited direction
• Exhibit flexibility and agility in response to changing priorities
• Solid organizational mission alignment and commitment to collaboration and teamwork
• Demonstrate ability and willingness to continuously acquire new competencies and accept new challenges
• Experience with data cleaning, dataset preparation, and conducting analyses (descriptive analytics and bivariate analyses) in statistical software preferred (e.g., STATA, R, etc.)
• Excellent organizational, and project management skills, with outstanding attention to detail
• Intermediate skill level with Excel and Google Sheets (pivot tables, etc) and G-Suite including Mail, Calendar, Drive