Clinical Operations Lead

This role is a mix of research coordinator, project manager, and client-facing liaison. You will support multiple pilot site initiatives, manage day-to-day logistics, help execute QI and minimal-risk IRB study designs, and make sure all the details are captured, tracked, and closed. If you enjoy structured chaos, talking with nurses, physicians, and administrators, and keeping complex projects on the rails, this role is for you.

This role reports to the Chief Medical Officer and works closely with the Chief Nursing Officer.

Key responsibilities

Pilot site coordination and liaison

• Serve as the primary operational contact for each pilot site (nursing leaders, QI teams, IT, research offices).

• Coordinate and schedule all pilot-related meetings: discovery sessions, workflow mapping, training sessions, weekly check-ins, and readouts.

• Track and promptly follow up on action items, decisions, and open questions from each meeting.

• Maintain clear, professional communication with site stakeholders via email, Slack or Teams, and shared workspaces.

Project management and logistics

• Build and maintain project plans and timelines for each pilot from discovery through post-pilot readout.

• Organize and track tasks across Drive Health and site teams using project management tools (for example Notion, Asana, Jira).

• Support coordination of training sessions for nurses and operational staff, including invites, materials distribution, and attendance tracking.

• Help manage logistics for go-live periods, including on-call escalation lists, communication channels, and quick-reference documentation.

Research and QI support

• Support preparation of QI and IRB-related documentation (protocols, data dictionaries, consent language when applicable, recruitment materials where needed).

• Coordinate with health system QI offices and IRBs to submit, track, and respond to documentation requests and approvals.

• Help ensure pilots are run according to the agreed protocol, including inclusion and exclusion criteria and defined workflows.

• Support data collection processes for Difference-in-Differences and other evaluation designs (pre and post metrics, control site tracking, operational KPIs).

Data and documentation

• Maintain organized records of each pilot: protocols, workflows, meeting notes, site contacts, decisions, and change logs.

• Coordinate secure data transfer workflows with site analytics teams (for example extract reports, metric feeds, log exports), working closely with Drive Health technical and analytics staff.

• Ensure all documentation is audit-ready and aligned with privacy, security, and compliance requirements.

• Help standardize templates for site onboarding, status reporting, and final pilot summaries.

Internal coordination

• Work closely with product, clinical, and engineering teams to surface site feedback and operational issues in a structured way.

• Flag risks early (timeline slippage, site disengagement, data availability issues) and help drive mitigation plans.

• Contribute to internal retrospectives after each pilot to improve playbooks, checklists, and templates.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a health-related field, public health, life sciences, or equivalent experience.

• 2 or more years of experience in at least one of the following:

  • Clinical research coordination in a hospital or academic setting

  • Quality improvement or implementation projects in a health system

  • Healthcare project management with direct provider or hospital contact

• Comfortable speaking with clinicians and operational leaders (nurse managers, directors, QI leaders, IT, etc.).

• Strong project management skills: building timelines, running meetings with clear agendas, tracking action items, and driving follow-through.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with strong attention to detail.

• Experience working with digital tools such as shared drives, project management software, and collaborative documentation platforms (for example Notion, Confluence).

• Comfort working with spreadsheets and basic data tasks (for example Excel or Google Sheets for tracking metrics, logs, and lists).

• Estimated travel: 0 to 20 percent.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience working with academic medical centers or large health systems.

• Familiarity with IRB, HIPAA, and basic concepts in research ethics and clinical documentation.

• Prior experience coordinating multi-site studies or pilots.

• Comfort working in an early-stage startup environment with shifting priorities and limited structure.

• Background in nursing, clinical research, health administration, or clinical informatics.

What success looks like in the first 6 months

• 2 to 4 pilot projects successfully launched and completed with clean documentation, surprises professionally handled, and strong site relationships.

• Clear, repeatable templates and checklists for site onboarding, pilot tracking, and readouts are in place and used consistently.

• Pilot stakeholders at health systems view you as the go-to person who keeps everything organized and responsive.

Internal teams feel that they know what is happening across pilots without chasing updates.