Clin App Support Specialist

• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard Work Schedule:
• Building:
• Salary Range: $91,200 - $112,000

Position Summary

The Clinical Application Support Specialist provides frontline support, maintenance, and optimization for a range of clinical software systems used across CUIMC’s academic medical environment. This role collaborates with clinicians, IT colleagues, and vendor partners to resolve application issues, enhance workflows, and ensure reliable, secure, and efficient system performance. The Specialist serves as a liaison between clinical departments and IT, supporting both day-to-day issue resolution and longer-term application improvement initiatives. This position contributes to the overall effectiveness of CUIMC’s clinical systems by ensuring that applications are configured, supported, and continuously optimized to meet evolving patient care and operational needs.

This role delivers IT services on behalf of CUIMC in coordination with external affiliates and institutional partners, supporting integrated technology operations across organizations.

Responsibilities

Application Support & Maintenance

• Provide timely support for a portfolio of clinical applications, including EHR modules, diagnostic tools, and departmental software.
• Troubleshoot, analyze, and resolve functional and technical incidents, escalating to vendors or internal escalation teams when appropriate.
• Monitor application performance and contribute to the early detection of system degradation or emerging support trends.
• Assist with routine maintenance, including application configurations, template adjustments, security roles, and user permission management.
• Document issue resolution steps, update troubleshooting guides, and maintain internal documentation libraries to support knowledge transfer.

Testing & Optimization

• Participate in testing efforts for new features, upgrades, and configuration changes across clinical applications.
• Validate functional requirements during user acceptance testing (UAT) and support clinical staff during go-lives and cutovers.
• Work closely with analysts, developers, and clinical stakeholders to translate workflow gaps or enhancement needs into actionable system requests.
• Recommend and support configuration changes that improve efficiency, usability, or data quality within supported applications.
• Track enhancement requests and recurring issues to inform continuous improvement planning and user education.

Compliance & Documentation

• Ensure all application support activities are conducted in compliance with HIPAA, institutional privacy policies, and system security standards.
• Maintain detailed and accurate records of system configurations, incident resolutions, testing logs, and workflow design decisions.
• Support compliance readiness efforts including audit preparation, security reviews, and system access documentation.
• Assist with documentation and control procedures that ensure traceability for change management and validation processes.

People

• Serve as a liaison between clinical end users and technical teams, translating clinical needs into technical requirements and vice versa.
• Conduct proactive rounding with clinical departments to build relationships, gather feedback, and identify optimization opportunities.
• Collaborate with department super users and education staff to support the creation and delivery of training materials.
• Support communication and change management strategies related to system updates, policy changes, or downtime events.
• Build strong working relationships with physicians, nurses, administrative leads, and IT colleagues across CUIMC.

Other

• Stay informed about new product features, version upgrades, and application roadmaps for systems within your support portfolio.
• Perform other related duties and responsibilities as assigned/requested.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Healthcare, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 3 years of experience supporting clinical software systems (e.g., EHRs, ancillary clinical tools, or specialty applications) in a healthcare or academic medical center environment.
• Solid understanding of clinical workflows across inpatient, outpatient, or specialty care settings.
• Familiarity with healthcare data standards and system integration concepts.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to support both functional and technical application issues.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills; able to collaborate effectively with clinicians, technical teams, and vendors.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting integration of clinical applications with electronic health records (e.g., Epic).
• Familiarity with clinical documentation, e-prescribing, patient portal systems, or specialty-specific platforms (e.g., perioperative, pharmacy, or behavioral health systems).
• Understanding of HIPAA and PHI handling requirements in clinical application environments.
• Prior experience working in a clinical informatics or health IT support role within a hospital, academic medical center, or health system.

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.