Job Summary:

In accordance with the Purpose, Vision, Values and Coast Salish Teachings, and strategic direction of PHSA, safety, including both patient and employee safety, is a priority and a responsibility shared by everyone at PHSA. As such, the requirement to continuously improve quality and safety is inherent in all aspects of this position.

The Provincial Digital Health & Information Services (PDHIS) is consolidated program that provides services to Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA), Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) and Providence Health Care (PHC). For the assigned portfolio, the Senior Systems Analyst reports to the Leader and is responsible for providing leadership and direction on the support and development of new and existing complex PDHIS systems and/or solutions. The Senior Systems Analyst provides work direction, instructs and demonstrates PDHIS staff, reviews workload, ensures completion of work assignments, participates in the recruitment and selection of staff, and refers issues to supervisor and/or provides input to the Supervisor regarding staff performance as requested. The Senior Systems Analyst functions as a senior resource and consults and collaborates with interdisciplinary team members and other professionals to promote excellence in patient/client centered care and education, utilizing a broad-based understanding of systems relationships to carry out in-depth systems analysis.

The role carries out an advanced level of troubleshooting across complex systems, conducts feasibility studies, examines, and identifies problems, recommends solutions and modifications; and develops specifications for complex system applications, resourcing costs and implementation plans. Provides technical/system guidance, advice, and consultation by collaborating with physicians, nurses, allied health professional, other PDHIS and technical teams and collaborates and represents PDHIS to various partners, vendors and technical groups, maintaining good working relationships with the PDHIS internal and external partners. This position draws on working knowledge of SQL, clinical information system, electronic medical record (EMR) application, ITIL incident and change control process, Agile methodology; understanding of report writing, Medical Logic Modules and data structures; as well as proficiency in MS Office applications (Word, Excel, Visio, PowerPoint, and Project). Examines and identifies problems with existing systems and recommends modifications to and/or new systems, detailed work and project plans, and product roadmaps. The Systems Analyst is a senior professional level job that works with great independence within a multi-site health care environment and requires considerable knowledge of the computing environment and is expected to remain current with PDHIS procedures and policy changes.

Duties/Accountabilities:

1.    Provides work direction, guidance, mentoring and coaching of staff; assisting with work priorities within the portfolio; resolving day-to-day operational systems issues; and determining related training requirements and referring unresolved operational and staffing issues to the Leader.
2.    Assists with recruitment of staff by reviewing applications and providing feedback on technical qualifications of candidates; participating on interview panels in conjunction with the Leader; and rating candidates’ answers. Assists with training of new staff and provides input to the Leader regarding staff performance as requested.
3.    Carries out in-depth systems analysis; ensures errors/deficiencies are corrected; provides an advanced level of troubleshooting across complex systems (remote and onsite); plans, develops and builds and implements configuration changes; assists with all levels of testing (e.g. unit, functional, regression testing); and proposes hardware and/or software modifications or upgrades to enhance the overall system by utilizing advanced technical knowledge and aptitude.
4.    Provides input and suggestions on complex develops/build activities to ensure system functionality and effective results retrieval processes, coordinating acceptance and/or user sign-off and user acceptance schedules for major system changes, and ensuring both user needs, and clinical systems needs are addressed. Provides on-site presence as needed and verbal and written feedback/formal documentation to the leadership team and working/advisory groups on major system changes or major incidents and potential clinical workflow changes.
5.    Provides input into disaster preparedness plans by participating in the development and maintenance of downtime procedures and participating in downtime/disaster exercises.
6.    Develops application support processes, procedures and standards; creates comprehensive system and operational documentation e.g. specification documents for current and future workflow; standard operating procedures for application/technical support; incident reports; system enhancement reports; system health check and remediation recommendations in collaboration with various clinical, technical, application and/or vendor groups
7.    Functions as a senior systems analyst by coordinating complex large/medium initiatives and projects. Assists with all phases of the project including planning, analyzing requirements, and performing feasibility/impact analysis, assisting with plans, develops and builds activities, testing, and participating in implementation and go live/activation support on site.
8.    Develops and implements project work plans, prepares project status reports and presentations. Participates in the creation of testing strategies, briefing notes, go live plans, remediation strategies, service desk documents, STRAs and project sign off/approval documents.
9.    Attends meetings to provide input on operational requirements of the area, meeting with senior staff/leaders to determine priorities and needs; supporting clients in identifying technical/system deficiencies, providing options and presenting to decision makers, negotiating with client departments and other project teams, and providing user training as required.
10.    Liaises with vendors or third-party services personnel to troubleshoot and remediate issues, monitor service level agreements and response times, collaborate with vendors on patches and releases, create detailed Service Requests documents, and contribute to the development of Requests for Proposals (RFP) documentation to be sent to vendors.
11.    Leads and/or attends team meetings, participates in team discussions and projects, and actively participates in and/or supports continuous quality and process improvement activities by reviewing job workflow, reporting system issues and errors, and providing input/feedback to the Leader such as identifying roadblocks and inefficiencies, and proposing possible solutions.
12.    Performs other related duties as required.

Qualifications:

Education, Training and Experience
•    Graduation from a recognized degree or diploma program in Computer Science, four years' recent related experience, or an equivalent combination of education, training and experience.
Skills and Abilities

•    Ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing.
•    Ability to deal with others effectively.
•    Physical ability to carry out the duties of the position.
•    Ability to write programs in a variety of programming languages.
•    Ability to organize work.
•    Ability to operate related equipment.