Data Scientist III - Quality & Patient Safety Initiative (QPSi)

Classification Title:

Data Scientist III

Job Description:

The UF College of Medicine’s Quality and Patient Safety Initiative (QPSi) is seeking a Data Scientist III to drive AI-powered improvements in patient safety and healthcare operations. This role involves collaborating with interdisciplinary teams and key stakeholders to develop innovative, data-driven solutions that enhance quality care. Responsibilities include extracting clinically relevant features from raw data, designing and developing algorithms to model complex systems, providing data science expertise, meeting with end-users and key stakeholders to understand operational questions to be addressed, and working with other team members to support the development of AI models and their impact in a clinical setting. Through these duties, the incumbent will contribute to the College of Medicine’s goal of advancing innovations to improve quality and patient safety, specifically focusing on the application of AI and advanced analytical tools.

The position offers an excellent opportunity for someone passionate about improving quality and patient safety. It emphasizes innovative, data-driven approaches to address complex healthcare challenges and enhance communication on these intricate issues with various audiences.

About This Role:

Model Development

• Collaborate with clinical teams to design data-driven decision-making models and translate decision points into available clinical data.
• Design, implement, and evaluate reinforcement learning and net benefit models, considering uncertainly, constraints, and multiple competing objectives.
• Development of novel process mining techniques, including but not limited to sequence analysis, soft clustering, and graph neural networks, to answer client’s questions related to patient safety and patient healthcare pathways.
• Lead innovative approaches to the integration of different data modalities into models.
• Contribute to the development of process-, sequence-, and text-driven features for classification and other types of AI models.
• Identify opportunities for advanced analytics and data mining approaches.

Enhancement of data and model infrastructure

• Facilitate extracting clinically relevant features from raw data to match the needs of each healthcare scenario.
• Contribute to developing streamlined pipelines to enable model deployment in clinical settings.
• Lead data quality evaluation and define standards for data quality checks.
• Design and implement methods for evaluation of new analytics tools and models specific to their use cases.

Project Management

• Assist with the organization and coordination of projects.
• Collaborate with key stakeholders and interdisciplinary teams to understand user needs, draft initial proposals and assess feasibility.
• Develop technical documentation.

Knowledge Dissemination

• Create comprehensive reports and documentation summarizing the project status, summary recommendations, and final outcomes.
• Train QPSi AI/QI team, healthcare professionals, and stakeholders in standard and innovative AI and advanced data analytics approaches and capabilities.
• Collaborate with teams and subject matter experts to prepare technical and non-technical presentations, analysis, and reports for leadership. Program design reviews, and operational readiness reviews to share knowledge and promote partnership.

We Offer Exceptional Benefits:

• Low-cost State Health Plans: Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance 
• Life and Disability Insurance 
• Generous Retirement Options to secure your future
• Comprehensive Paid Time Off Packages: Includes over 10 paid holidays, as well as paid family, sick and vacation leave
• Exceptional Personal and Professional Development Opportunities: Access to UF Training & Organizational Development programs, leadership development, LinkedIn Learning, and more
• Tuition Assistance through the UF Employee Education Program
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Eligible Employer

About Gainesville, Florida:

Home to the University of Florida, one of the nation's top public universities, Gainesville offers vibrant academic and healthcare communities alongside an affordable cost of living, no state income tax, and mild winters. Enjoy the outdoors with over 30 miles of bike trails, freshwater springs, and numerous water activities, plus easy access to beaches and world-class theme parks.

Gainesville combines historic charm with modern amenities, including a great school system, a lively downtown, and a thriving local culture with farmers' markets and craft breweries. Discover professional growth and quality of life in Gainesville—where community, innovation, and work-life balance meet!

For more information, check out: The Guide to Greater Gainesville and Explore Gainesville in 60 seconds

Expected Salary: $88,000 - $105,000; commensurate with education and experience Minimum Requirements:

A Bachelor's Degree in data science, statistics, bioinformatics, analytics, or similar field and five years of experience; Master's Degree in data science, statistics, bioinformatics, analytics, or similar field and three years of experience; Doctoral Degree in data science, statistics, bioinformatics, analytics, or similar field and one year of experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Proficient in Python and familiar with SQL programming.
• Skilled in designing and implementing data-driven projects.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities in decision-making.
• Experience with AI frameworks: clustering, graph neural networks, NLP, generative AI, sequence analysis, multi-objective optimization, and reinforcement learning.
• Background in data engineering and Power BI for reporting and visualization.
• Hands-on experience with healthcare data management and analytics.
• Strong communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Resourceful team player, capable of independent work and effective organization.
• Proactive in seeking opportunities and proposing innovative solutions.
• Collaborative, with a preference for working with clinical staff.
• Self-motivated and comfortable in leadership and team roles.

Special Instructions to Applicants:

To be considered, please upload the following documents with your application:

• Cover Letter
• Resume
• Contact information for three professional references

If an accommodation due to a disability is needed to apply for this position, please call 352-392-2477 or the Florida Relay System at 800-955-8771 (TDD).

Application must be submitted by 11:55 p.m. (ET) of the posting end date.

Health Assessment Required: No