Decision Scientist III - Quality and Patient Safety initiative

Classification Title:

Data Scientist III

Classification 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.

Job Description:

The Decision Scientist III supports the Quality and Patient Safety initiative (QPSi) within the UF College of Medicine by applying decision-science approaches to improve patient safety, care quality, and healthcare operations across UF Health and partner institutions. The role focuses on helping teams evaluate clinical and operational decisions by modeling options, constraints, tradeoffs, and expected outcomes.

In collaboration with clinical and technical partners, the incumbent integrates predictive insights, causal estimates, process measures, and operational data into decision-optimization and policy-evaluation work. Core methods include multi-objective optimization, simulation, offline reinforcement learning, and state-space or other sequential decision models.

Successful candidates will bring operations research (or related) training and strong collaboration skills in interdisciplinary settings.

About This Role:

Decision Optimization, Offline Reinforcement Learning, and State-Space Modeling

• Frame clinical and operational questions as decision problems with clear choices, constraints, timelines, and outcomes.
• Develop and evaluate multi-objective optimization approaches (e.g., weighted objectives, constrained formulations, and Pareto-frontier analyses) that balance patient outcomes, quality/value of care metrics, clinician workload, and workflow feasibility (e.g. alert fatigue/sensitivity).
• Use offline reinforcement learning or related policy-evaluation methods when historical data are strong enough to compare decision strategies.
• Build models that represent how patients, care pathways, resources, or bottlenecks change over time.
• Use model outputs, causal estimates, process measures, and operational data from other team members as inputs into decision analyses.
• Test how recommendations change under different assumptions, data limitations, and implementation constraints.
• Produce analyses, documentation, and code that can be reviewed, reused, and extended by the broader QPSi team.

Data Translation and Analytical Integration

• Identify the data needed for decision modeling, including state definitions, actions, outcomes, constraints, and exclusion criteria.
• Work with data engineering, modeling, causal inference, and process-improvement staff to prepare data for optimization and policy evaluation.
• Convert predictions, risk scores, causal estimates, process measures, clinical rules, and operational data into usable model inputs.
• Evaluate whether available data are appropriate for policy comparison, especially when data are missing, actions are sparse, or timing is inconsistent.
• Prototype analyses using Python, SQL, and distributed computing resources when large healthcare datasets require them.

Clinical and Operational Implementation Support

• Work with clinicians, operational leaders, and project teams to ensure recommendations are realistic for the care setting.
• Help define thresholds, safeguards, monitoring measures, and likely failure points for decision-support interventions.
• Compare policy options and identify where additional evidence, workflow redesign, or prospective evaluation may be needed.
• Coordinate with staff leading predictive modeling, causal inference, process mapping, data engineering, and MLOps so optimization work fits into the broader implementation lifecycle.

Communication and Knowledge Dissemination

• Prepare reports, presentations, documentation, and visuals that make optimization results and policy comparisons understandable.
• Explain methods, uncertainty, limitations, and recommended next steps to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Document reusable methods, assumptions, and implementation lessons for QPSi knowledge-sharing.

About the College of Medicine:

The University of Florida's College of Medicine is committed to advancing health through education, research, and patient care. With a focus on innovation and excellence, the college prepares future healthcare leaders through a rigorous curriculum that combines basic sciences with hands-on clinical experience. The College of Medicine emphasizes interdisciplinary co