Patient Safety & Maternal Health Research Assistant, Betsy Lehman Center

An independent state agency, the Betsy Lehman Center is charged with fostering a statewide program of research, data analysis, and information‑sharing that engages health care agencies, providers, and consumers in initiatives that will reduce medical error and enhance patient safety in the Commonwealth. The Center was re‑established by Chapter 224 of the Acts of 2012, An Act Improving the Quality of Health Care and Reducing Costs through Increased Transparency, Efficiency and Innovation, and is supported by the state’s Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA).

The Betsy Lehman Center is seeking a full‑time Research Assistant, Patient Safety & Maternal Health, who reports to the Center’s Director of Research. The successful candidate will be able to work in a hybrid environment with up to three days remote and at least two team days (currently Wednesday and Thursday) in the office at 501 Boylston Street, Boston. The annual salary is between $61,551.88 and $.

The research assistant will work on data and data‑related projects pertaining to maternal health and patient safety in Massachusetts. The ideal candidate will be goal‑oriented, creative, and a fast learner; will enjoy working in a collaborative team environment; and will be excited by the prospect of building foundational data sets and reports from the ground up.

• Collect, construct, and analyze data pertaining to patient safety, such as reported adverse events in medical claims and survey data.
• Utilize appropriate software, including Excel, SAS, REDCap, Tableau and other analytic software (SQL, STATA, R, or Access), as needed.
• Perform more complex multivariate analyses such as linear and logistic regression.
• Create clear and concise graphics, including charts and tables, to visually represent data and communicate inferences to diverse audiences.
• Help develop and maintain surveys and data repositories to manage, organize, and track multiple datasets for research and quality improvement projects.
• Provide technical assistance to organizations that submit data to the Center’s repository.
• Ensure adherence to all relevant standards for secure use of data including documentation and storage.
• Interpret data accurately and produce clear and comprehensive written analyses, graphics, tables, and presentations for diverse internal and external audiences, including peer‑reviewed journals.
• Under supervision, plan, organize, and prioritize assigned projects, creating and managing work plans that reflect the tasks, time frames, and processes required to successfully complete each.
• Represent the Center at external meetings when necessary.
• Facilitate clear communication between the Center’s research staff and external partners.
• Schedule and organize meetings, maintain agendas and take notes.
• Assist the Center’s Director of Research with other tasks as necessary.

• Experience utilizing SAS, REDCap and/or SQL to extract, cleanse, link, and integrate health care data from various platforms and large data sets, with demonstrable proficiency in writing maintainable, supportable, and well‑documented code.
• Experience interpreting and analyzing health care utilization, access, quality, performance, patient safety, and/or survey data to produce clear and comprehensive written analyses for distribution to diverse internal and external groups.
• Experience with implementing and using data quality processes, including the demonstrated ability to assess accuracy of output at a report level and to investigate potential issues at a more granular level.
• Proficiency in producing graphs, tables, reports and presentations using Excel, PowerPoint, Word and/or Tableau.
• General understanding of patient safety, health care policy, financing, and delivery systems in Massachusetts.
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively—both orally and in writing—with others internal and external to an organization.
• Strong judgment and discretion; ability to strictly adhere to relevant policies governing confidential data.
• Experience working on multiple projects while successfully meeting deadlines.
• Experience working collaboratively, as well as independently, with…