• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard Work Schedule:
• Building:
• Salary Range: $65,300.00-$80,000.00

Position Summary

The Clinical Coordinator I is an integral member of the epilepsy care team serving both pediatric and adult patient populations, working collaboratively across neurology and neurosurgery. The Clinical Coordinator I focuses on:

• Navigating the patient and family across settings and specialties according to the patient care plan
• Bridging gaps between various specialists, services and points of care encountered by the patient/family
• Serving as a consistent primary contact for patient/family
• Partners with physician offices, radiology and other departments to expedite access
• Collaborates with clinical team to ensure coordination of care across the continuum
• Synchronize care across settings beginning with identification as a surgical candidate and working with patients and families to ensure all pre-surgical work-up is completed
• Ensures patient understanding of  care plan
• Serves as the administrative lead for the epilepsy surgery program, managing the epilepsy surgery patient list and coordinating the weekly epilepsy surgery conference
• Coordinates emotional support needs and makes appropriate referrals to psychosocial support team
• Participate in identification of patients for clinical trials

Responsibilities

Care Coordination

• Works with physicians and nurse practitioners to identify the necessary steps required for pre-surgical evaluation of patients who have been identified as candidates for epilepsy surgery
• Serves as a liaison between the interdisciplinary team and patients and families to ensure care is delivered in a timely fashion according to established guidelines and protocols
• Develop and maintain relationships with clinical team members and schedulers to ensure appropriate and timely scheduling of laboratory and diagnostic studies, epilepsy monitoring unit visits, consultation appointments, and all other required evaluations
• Obtain insurance authorizations for diagnostics procedures and evaluations
• Coordinates multi-site appointments and schedules consult and follow up appointments with various disciplines
• Proactively looks to identify opportunities to expedite all aspects of care
• Serves as a leader in communicating with physicians, nurse practitioners and fellows completion of diagnostic tests and relevant issues that may impact the pre-surgical evaluation to ensure the care team is updated on the patients current status
• Attends patient/family treatment planning conferences with MD as requested by patient and/or physician.
• Anticipates and/or identifies potential logistical, financial, personal barriers to patient adherence to visit schedule and care plan (i.e. issues with insurance and transportation); makes other team members aware and interfaces with family members and any relevant internal and external providers to troubleshoot/develop a plan to minimize or eliminate obstacles
• Collaborates with inpatient social worker and care coordinator to coordinate post hospital discharge needs including therapies/rehabilitation, home care, school accommodations, follow up appointments, etc.

Program Support/Quality

• Develops and manages patient tracking registry to ensure all patients complete necessary work-up in a timely fashion
• Identifies relevant cases for discussion at epilepsy surgical conference and maintain all administrative aspects of conference including organizing agenda, scheduling meetings, etc.
• Assigns cases to fellows for presentation at surgical conference and maintain communication with fellows to ensure all appropriate information is presented at conference
• Identifies and monitors program metrics relevant to patient access and navigation services; evaluates role effectiveness and reports to team
• Identifies process improvement opportunities within the pre-surgical work-up and collaborates with colleagues across departments to ensure efficient workflow

Emotional

• Assess the patient’s and their families/caregivers ability to understand the patient’s care needs, assist with access, and determine personal needs and concerns during pre-surgical evaluation and post-operatively
• Communicate with patients and families to check progress through the course of their experience to help ensure their needs are being met
• Ensure that important support needs are met include referral to social work

Education Patient/Family

• Provides patient/family educational resources based on assessment findings relevant to teaching learning topics, styles and the identification of special needs and preferences
• Answer basic patient questions and provides patient/family with materials related to disease and treatment options
• Makes follow up contacts (e.g. by phone, email and visit) to ensure patient/family understanding of the plan of care, evaluated adherence levels and reinforced education provided
• Documents patient/family response to information provided and communicates to the appropriate clinical team members
• Coaches patient/family through diagnostic and therapeutic experiences to minimize anxiety and ensure adherence to medical plan; provides warm handoffs at various points but maintains contact with patient/family and point of care managers as patients move along the continuum

Clinical Research/Trial Participation

• Identifies candidates for open clinical trials and communicates to physician and research nurse; collaborates with research nurse to ensure follow-through on clinical trials; accrual of individual patients
• Maintain up-to-date information of available trials and serve as a bridge to facilitate access to information / participation

Minimum Qualifications

Requires a Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent in education and experience, plus three years of related experience in healthcare.

Preferred Qualifications

• Preferred experience in working directly with patients and coordinating care for patients and their families
• Bilingual: Spanish and English
• Skilled team player and be able to multi-task

Other Requirements

• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Strong organizational and leadership skills
• Detailed oriented
• Ability to prioritize and problem solve
• Understands care coordination across disciplines
• Basic computer skills (Microsoft Word, Excel)

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

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