HEALTHCARE COMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERING PROJECT MANAGER

HEALTHCARE COMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERING PROJECT MANAGER

ABSTRACT: Engineering project manager for consulting engineering firm designing specialized medical communication systems. Setting up the budget, staff allocations, scheduling, participation in design, complete spectrum of client liaison services, change order capture and processing, accounting interface.

OVERVIEW: One of the largest and most respected designers of healthcare facilities in the world seeks to broaden their offerings to the healthcare marketplace by providing specialized communications systems engineering services. The company wishes to provide consulting engineering services, conceptual and feasibility work, design engineering services and specification services, construction administrative support, and commissioning services for common and often code mandated healthcare communications systems to include nurse call, paging, infant abduction, wireless emergency call / panic systems, wandering patient systems, intercom systems, videoconferencing, A/V - multimedia, lighting controls, RFID, CCTV and digital video recording, door control, television distribution and the spectrum of contemporary electronic communications systems that are employed in the healthcare provider environment.

The job combines a knowledge base typical of consulting engineers in the medical systems field and includes political skills, specialized technical skills, skills for the development of the deliverables (which may include anything from feasibility studies to detailed RFPs and CDs), and the ability to manage P&L business in a project environment.

Entering one of the country?s strongest engineering firms when we are expanding services in a growth market in which we are well entrenched in an executive engineering position offers a fast career growth track. Other staff members do not have to retire, expire, or be run over to for you to lead and move ahead in this practice.

Using a historic reputation, lots of work in process in the healthcare arena, and some extraordinary competence in other departments to compliment your practice, the Healthcare Electronic Systems Engineering PM (HESEPM) will support the expansion of a business practice. The existing credibility of the firm, and existing jobs and relationships will allow you, working with related engineering departments that can assist in the support of low voltage systems design (a great communications infrastructure group that can design the passive and switching network layer of any systems integration), to pursue work in large, exciting, and often ground-up projects of scope that many of the lesser firms never get an opportunity to participate in at all.

It is specific experience in the healthcare communications niche that we are interested in expanding in our practice. In this case, the medical communications we are pursuing are specialized electronic systems in the hospitals, surgical center environments, and nursing homes APART from the patient diagnostic tools, surgical support, computer hardware (but we do design LAN, VPN and WAN systems), enterprise resource management and records archival and retrieval systems. Nurse call, paging and other specialized communications systems that allow doctors, nurses and patients to communicate during the day to day operation of a hospital, assisted care facility, or nursing home are the systems that we wish to have our (HESEPM) an expert in. Certainly, knowledge of basic LAN and WAN are part of this, but the focus will be on designing, specifying supporting project management for the integrated communication systems.

To support the design efforts of the (HESEPM) there are formal electrical engineering, specialized medical equipment planning, communications network engineering, integrated electronic security, A/V, CAD, and marketing departments. The fundamental responsibilities here will be to assist the design of healthcare communications systems, client interaction related to those efforts, support for the production of appropriate deliverables which will include proposals, specifications, RFP, answers to RFIs, and general CDs, and the management of the client relationship, our staff, the billing process and time through a project from capture to commissioning and turn over.

We are a consulting firm. As such, we sell a body of knowledge. To help support the sale of knowledge and attendant services as a contractor the (HESEPM) has to have very good political and people skills. You will often be the voice of your department in public meetings, contractor's meetings, project meetings, and may ultimately hire, direct, and mentor others. We need a person with intuition, a sense of complex meeting protocol, and enough experience to know what can be said, not said, when and in front of whom. While the pure engineering skills for this specific subject are is a requirement, it is important to be able to connect that body of knowledge to the clients, successfully positioning the company, building a reputation, controlling the projects, and building relationships that will lead to the next jobs.

Relationship development will always be part of the responsibilities for a consulting engineer doing any portion of the work to move the department forward and maximize the capture of opportunities, even if the initial baseline projects are placed in the your care. We need a person that can feel out potential opportunity and leaves no opportunity unexplored.

JOB DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: To be perfectly honest, we are looking for a collection of skills and competence in the medical communications consulting venue, and hope to assemble the biggest and best collection we can in this staff addition. That being said, it is reasonable to sketch out the things that must be accomplished. The (HESEPM) will represent the company and manage the electronic medical communications systems engineering engagement implementations; an effort that may include everything from design support to complete P&L project management responsibilities coupled with relationship development, support of proposal creation and production, the execution and management of the work, the conduct and control of client and subcontractor meetings and construction administration efforts.

All of the ancillary skills; the ability to work with senior firm members towards the development of business and marketing plans, the ability to contribute to the development of a departmental budget, and the ability to effectively manage as the business grows are duties and responsibilities of the (HESEPM).

Large projects are run like any construction project.

You will be involved in the estimating process and be the voice of operational reality there. You may be involved in the proposal and proposal presentation processes.

You will be a participant in contract formulation, assessment and negotiation.

You will create a AIA format schedule of values and you will attempt to front load that schedule to allow the company to bill as soon as possible in the project cycle.

You will participate in budget formulation.

You will break down the tasks, create a master project schedule and allocate resources to perform the work contracted for.

Where possible, you will be an active contributor to project work.

You will regularly assess work completed and do cost to complete analysis and reporting.

You will capture and estimate change of project scope and change orders.

You will support RFP creation and subcontractor interview processes.

You will participate in contract administration, visiting sites, working with contractors and assuring clients receipt of goods, services and quality of execution.

You will coordinate billing with accounting and support dispute resolution.

You will keep uniform, thorough, and high quality notes regarding the entire project with a high level of detail on any subject matter that might be considered contentious.



SKILLS REQUIRED IN THIS POSITION: Experience with integrated electronic communications systems (legacy and contemporary) in the healthcare arena with emphasis on nurse call, paging, patient control, emergency call and infant abduction systems design and project implementation is a the fundamental qualification for this position. Knowing how to manage the entire consulting engineering process from sales engagements to turn over is what we need. Project management skills for the consulting engineering business are a must. Genuine medical communications systems engineering acumen is something we would very much like. That acumen might include an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the hardware, and the interaction of those hardware systems with the weakest link, which are the users in the case of medical communications systems. An understanding of broader hardware and software systems interactivity is required. Experience with diverse healthcare operational environments in the broadest possible way for projects that are small and large in scope is required.

Negotiation and sales skills are part of any management positions, and we need them here.

Additional services provided by this practice and project you may be called upon to participate in and manage beyond the thematic nurse call, emergency staff call, paging systems, request for assistance, and CCTV surveillance systems may include RFID systems for asset protection, videoconferencing systems, teaching suites and presentation rooms, access control systems, television distribution, wireless panic call systems, and door control/monitoring. As mentioned earlier, there are engineering departments to support those additional requirements as they evolve.

The qualified candidate has systems level engineering expertise, genuine medical communication systems design and integration experience, purpose specific engineering skills related to healthcare electronic communications systems, certifications that support this work, and a tangible and directly related work history which includes the management of programs and projects.

Experience with the larger suppliers to the local commercial and governmental agencies, and a history of working with them is a very important asset. Dukane, Rauland Borg, Jeron, Tech Works, Tek-Tone, Aiphone, ClearCom Bogen, Sony, Panasonic should have been part of your systems integration life.

Experience with any and all healthcare life safety systems projects will be an asset. A history of doing standards driven Federal work can be applied here. The (HESEPM) we seek must be able to manage engineering projects for complex, contemporary and fully operable integrated electronic communications systems for the Healthcare marketplace.

Other life safety systems engineering project experience would be enormously valuable as well. Often fire alarm, annunciation, and other warning and communication systems are integrated along with the systems that are particular to healthcare, and having the experience to coordinate with other specialized providers is an asset.

THE COMPANY: More than fifty years, profitable, stable, more than 700 associates, and with a national and international presence, this is one of the country?s largest and most successful A&E firms. For all of that, we are a ?friendly firm?. The feel we want is down to earth, honest and really easy to deal with.

Our client list contains a veritable "who's who" successful Fortune 500 clients, and government agencies of every sort from local to the highest federal levels. Offices are located in the country?s strongest urban business centers in "A" spaces, and resources available to employee's are first class.

This engineering unit reports to a Vice President of Communication Systems, who has a real personality, cachet, a sense of humor, a prevailing sense of reason along with VISION, COURAGE and STICK. He is a good person, agile, very, very smart and easy to work with if you are a professional upholding your end of the deal. He is looking for self-actualized folks that can take well-formulated global assignments and execute. He is not a micro-manager at all and is not a good match for a person that requires ceaseless incremental monitoring. He is there to make sure you are equipped to begin your work and understand our systems, and then expects managers to manage. There is local reporting and project sharing with a specialized medical technologies group.

What should be of interest to an engineer working within an A&E firm is that our firm has moved in an obvious way over many years to fortify the engineering components of our business. This reflects an understanding and acknowledgement on the part of senior executives of the client?s wish for a comprehensive and all-inclusive services provider. Our firm can and does provide any and all building systems design and engineering services required by the client base, right through commissioning. There is cultural acknowledgement of the importance and value of a full services offering, and respect and acceptance from the larger community of architects for the necessary engineering practices. Fair to say that architects and engineers will never escape one another on any project, and we have done a much better job than most fostering mutual respect and quality communications among our communities of Architects and Engineers. Interdisciplinary morale is really very good.

Excellent benefits, perks and bonus potential are a concomitant of the status of the firm; In the A&E environment, it does not get stronger than this. The qualified candidate will be able to establish and grow a practice or even a department within the company, and will be able to retire from that practice comfortably.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS AND SPECIAL QUALIFICATIONS:

A healthcare communications systems engineering project portfolio.
Strong verbal skills and writing skills.
Computer skills. Basic AutoCAD would be important along with all the office suites and Excel.
The ability to read and interpret architectural drawings and schematics for electrical and electronic systems.
A degree is strongly preferred.
Certifications and professional designations will enhance an applicant's position. These might include certifications from the vendors (some listed above), NICET, ICIA, manufacturers certifications, Cisco certifications, BICSI certifications, PMP certifications, Microsoft certifications.
The applicant MUST be a US citizen and should be able to acquire a DoD security clearance sponsored by the company if needed.

GENERAL PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES FOR OUR ENGINEERING PM: The person we are going to hire must be comfortable in a role that requires considerable interaction with clients, contractors and vendors. We need that rare combination of engineer-manager-leader-businessperson who happens to be a capable speaker, writer, and who is not a Prima Dona, having all of that on hand. Our (HESEPM) must be intuitive and know how to "measure" the clients and vendors alike, and proceed in a way that will be palatable to that particular set of audiences. This engineering executive must be able to read mixed interests and know what can be said to whom, when and sometimes never. This person must have distillation skills, and thereby be able to reduce the infinite to something comprehensible that can be designed, specified, packaged and sold, solving the clients' problems. The candidate must have self-confidence, and self-esteem, because dealing with the mixed public(s) on large, high-dollar, fast-track projects takes a bit of verve.

COMPENSATION: $85 - 110K based upon qualifications and depth of experience. Benefits, 401K, bonus plans, profit sharing representative of first tier corporate offerings.

CONTACT INFORMATION
Please send us a resume and cover letter.
EMAIL:consultants@entermail.net
SUBJECT LINE should read MEDCOMM

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