THE ORGANIZATION

The Vital real-time health data for Trials, Artificial Intelligence and a Learning Health System (VITAL) platform is a federally-funded, secure, high-performance computing environment being developed to connect hospital data repositories in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. VITAL will allow hospital data to be collected every 24 hours, linked, deidentified, and accessed by researchers through a unified portal. VITAL expands upon the GEMINI platform at Unity Health Toronto, which is a collaborative data and analytics platform that allows 35+ Ontario hospitals to accelerate research and quality improvement, leading to excellent hospital care. VITAL is accelerating the vision of bringing together near real-time health data for 20 million Canadians in one place for research and innovation to improve the healthcare system and advance the Canadian economy.

THE OPPORTUNITY

The VITAL team is seeking an experienced Data Platform Architect, with a dual focus on health data and platform architecture. This leader will oversee the design and initial deployment of the VITAL architecture within and across Ontario, Alberta and Quebec. The main responsibilities include: leading technical requirements gathering, identification and assessment of software and hardware solutions, development of detailed architecture plans, procurement and vendor management, development of an implementation roadmap, stakeholder engagement, and initial project implementation.

The Architect will play an integral expert role, working with VITAL and GEMINI Directors and directly advising the Platform Co-Leads, Dr. Amol Verma and Dr. Fahad Razak to whom this role reports. This will include liaising with various departments at Unity Health Toronto which houses VITAL and across VITAL’s collaborating institutions and hospitals, driving operational excellence. This will be dynamic, rewarding and fast-paced with interaction across disciplines including data and IT professionals in the public and private sectors, hospital leaders, policymakers, clinicians, and researchers.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Development of VITAL’s Platform Architecture

• Lead a team of data engineers, modelers, and scientists to design and build VITAL’s multi-provincial platform.
• Oversee technical requirements gathering to enable VITAL’s vision and objectives in line with industry-leading practices and data governance policies.
• Lead assessment of existing data architecture within each province and recommend strategies to align new technologies.
• Perform in-depth research to understand technical solutions to meet these requirements, making recommendations on viable options to pursue (including third-party or in-house development) for sustainable operations.
• Document, communicate, and disseminate architecture artifacts throughout development to diverse audiences to achieve engagement and buy-in.
• Design enterprise architecture for VITAL’s data platform, ensuring that interoperability, data lifecycle, technological risks and organizational readiness are addressed in the architecture plans and prepare detailed implementation plan, inclusive of timelines and required resources.
• Lead the drafting of RFP and technical specification documentation; oversee engagement, negotiation and management of technical vendors.

Initial Implementation of VITAL Infrastructure

• In collaboration with VITAL and GEMINI leadership, develop and lead a technical team to build the VITAL platform.
• Advise GEMINI’s Director of Data Science & Innovation on the deployment of near real-time data collection, exchange, and integration pipelines across Ontario into a central analytic environment.
• Coordinate with similar implementations in other provinces, beginning with Alberta and Quebec, ensuring interoperability.
• Lead the implementation of VITAL’s central platform to connect its provincial nodes.
• Contribute to the design and architecture of VITAL’s computing centres, in collaboration with IT leads at data centre host sites.

Administration, Planning, and Communications

• Provide managerial oversight to the technical team building VITAL’s central data platform.
• Provide technical knowledge transfer and mentorship to other colleagues.
• Act as the key representative for VITAL on committees and other project-related initiatives.
• Lead external/internal quality assurance audits and planning, in collaboration with VITAL and GEMINI collaborators.
• Prepare budgets, reports and lead presentations on proposals.
• Lead the preparation of procurement requirements for infrastructure acquisitions and oversee procurement evaluation.

Issue Resolution and Risk Mitigation

• Work with VITAL team to identify project bottlenecks and implement necessary optimizations.
• Lead the development of UAT protocols; oversee testing and incorporation into project plans.
• Ensure alignment with relevant cybersecurity and privacy standards, and coordinate third-party audits of infrastructure and advise on the remediation of vulnerabilities.
• Perform in-depth analysis, development and implementation of disaster recovery methodologies and high availability techniques.
• Work with Unity Health Toronto and GEMINI’s IT leaders in the development of database utilization policies, procedures, security, backup, and recovery.
• Forecast growth for advanced digital infrastructure and plan for scalability.
• Evaluate software and hardware requirements and recommend upgrades as needed.
• Participate fully in the identification and selection of appropriate project staff to meet deliverables.

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Master’s in Computer Science, Engineering, Bioinformatics, or related field or equivalent experience; PhD an asset.
• Proven track record of building and/or leading large-scale transformation of health data platforms.
• Minimum 7+ years of health data experience, including with data management, data governance, data integration, data analytics, data science, data engineering, IT systems as well as clinical and operational workflows.
• Experience working with electronic health record data and health information exchange standards (e.g., HL7, FHIR); working knowledge of health data standards for research data (e.g., OMOP) and imaging (e.g., DICOM).
• Advanced knowledge of high-performance computing environments, software development principles in an open-source framework, and cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, Azure).
• Experience with ETL tools and integrating source systems into data warehouses.
• Broad understanding and experience of data science including data modeling and data management, analytical tools, languages, or libraries (e.g. R, python); working knowledge of federated data systems is an asset.
• Demonstrated experience and leadership working with technical vendors during implementation of complex systems (enterprise warehouse systems, hospital information systems, etc.) including collecting and documenting complex business and system requirements across diverse stakeholders.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to share information/ideas in a manner that is easily understood by others.

Unity Health Toronto is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive organization. We strive to provide a recruitment process that is barrier-free and in compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and the Ontario Human Rights Code. We understand that you may require an accommodation at any stage of the recruitment process. When you are contacted, please inform the Talent Acquisition Specialist and we will work with you to meet your accommodation needs. We want to emphasize that all accommodation requests are handled with the utmost confidentiality, respecting your privacy and dignity.