RIS Team Lead / Manager

Akumin is a leading provider of outpatient radiology and oncology services, partnering with top hospitals and health systems nationwide to deliver advanced diagnostic imaging and exceptional patient care close to home. With a national footprint, cutting-edge technology, and a strong commitment to innovation and patient-centered care, our teams play a vital role in improving outcomes for millions of patients each year.

The Radiology Information Systems (RIS) Team Lead / Manager is responsible for leading the engineering and support team tasked with the design, configuration, optimization, integration, and ongoing lifecycle management of enterprise radiology workflows across our RIS and PACS platforms.

This role combines people leadership, workflow architecture, and systems integration, providing strategic oversight and hands-on technical guidance to a multidisciplinary team of RIS analysts, workflow specialists, and integration engineers. Operating as a pivotal liaison between technical engineering, clinical operations, radiologist groups, and revenue cycle leadership, the Team Lead ensures that scheduling, order intake, prior authorization, exam execution, radiologist reporting, and billing workflows are standardized, resilient, scalable, and fully aligned with organizational clinical and financial objectives.

Specific duties include, but are not limited to:

Leadership, Team Management & Operational Governance

Team Leadership & Development: Lead, mentor, and foster continuous growth across a high-performing team of RIS analysts and clinical systems specialists. Conduct performance evaluations, set operational objectives, and establish clear technical career paths.

Resource Allocation & Workload Prioritization: Effectively manage team capacity across daily break-fix support, continuous workflow optimization, enterprise project deliverables, and major system rollouts.

Process Governance & Standards: Establish and enforce best practices, standard operating procedures (SOPs), system change management protocols, and comprehensive documentation standards for enterprise RIS configuration.

Vendor & Stakeholder Alignment: Act as the primary technical and operational liaison between clinical operations, IT/interoperability teams, revenue cycle management (RCM) leadership, and core software vendors (e.g., Royal Health, eRAD, PACS vendors).

Workflow Architecture & Enterprise Standardization

End-to-End Workflow Optimization: Drive the design, standardization, and continuous refinement of end-to-end radiology workflows across multi-site and regional imaging centers.

Clinical & Revenue Cycle Integration: Govern the architecture and maintenance of procedure catalogs (CPT/HCPCS codes), modality exam protocols, and scheduling rules to optimize clinical throughput, turnaround time (TAT), patient access, and clean claim capture.

Throughput & Bottleneck Analysis: Identify operational bottlenecks, scheduling friction points, and communication gaps across sites; develop data-driven technical and workflow interventions to maximize modality utilization.

Interoperability & Integration Architecture

Interface & Data Flow Governance: Partner with Interoperability and PACS teams to oversee and validate HL7, DICOM, and FHIR data streams (ADT, ORM, ORU, DFT, MDM), ensuring data integrity across EHR, RIS, PACS, VNA, and third-party portals.

Routing & Exception Handling: Design and implement robust message routing rules, error queues, and exception-handling workflows to prevent dropped orders or delayed diagnostic reports.

Voice Recognition & Reporting Integration: Oversee integration between RIS, dictation/speech recognition systems (e.g., PowerScribe, Fluency), and clinical distribution channels.

Implementation Leadership, Migrations & Project Delivery

Enterprise Migrations & Deployments: Lead or support enterprise-level RIS migrations, platform consolidations, site expansions, and major version upgrades from conception through stabilization.

Project Lifecycle Execution: Direct project workstreams including technical scoping, workflow mapping, configuration, user acceptance testing (UAT), training curriculum development, cutover planning, and post-launch hypercare.

Continuous Quality Improvement: Monitor support ticket trends, key performance indicators (KPIs), and user feedback to proactively implement automated triage, self-service enhancements, and platform stability measures.

Required Qualifications:

Education & Experience

Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Healthcare Informatics, Computer Science, Information Technology, Healthcare Administration, or equivalent practical experience.

Professional Experience: 7+ years of progressive experience in healthcare clinical applications, with dedicated expertise in Radiology Information Systems (RIS) and PACS ecosystems.

Leadership Experience: 2+ years of demonstrated experience in a team lead, supervisory, or technical project management capacity.

Technical & Clinical Domain Knowledge

In-depth understanding of radiology business operations, multi-facility scheduling matrices, technologist workflows, and radiologist reading worklists.

Strong command of healthcare revenue cycle dependencies, including CPT/HCPCS coding accuracy, ICD-10 cross-referencing, authorization capture, and electronic charge posting.

Solid technical understanding of healthcare interoperability standards and protocols (HL7 v2/v3, DICOM, FHIR, IHE Scheduled Workflow profiles).

Experience with IT Service Management (ITSM) tools, ticket triage, SLA monitoring, and formal Change Management processes.

Leadership & Interpersonal Skills

Exceptional verbal and written communication skills with the proven ability to translate complex technical concepts into actionable operational strategies for clinical and executive stakeholders.

Strong analytical, forensic troubleshooting, and root-cause analysis skills.

Proven track record of managing competing priorities and delivering projects on time in dynamic healthcare environments.

Core Competencies

People Leadership & Talent Development: Inspires accountability, fosters a culture of collaboration, and elevates technical competencies across the team.

Systems Thinking & Workflow Architecture: Connects granular technical configuration choices to broad clinical, operational, and financial outcomes.

Execution Discipline: Drives complex multi-site projects, upgrades, and critical incident resolutions across the finish line with urgency and precision.

Cross-Functional Stakeholder Alignment: Bridges the gap between technologists, radiologists, clinical center managers, and executive leadership.

Why This Role Matters

As our enterprise imaging network continues to expand, this leadership role transforms our radiology informatics infrastructure into an agile, scalable business orchestration engine. By harmonizing technical innovation, team talent, and streamlined clinical workflows, the RIS Team Lead / Manager directly elevates patient access, improves provider satisfaction, accelerates report turnaround times, and secures organizational financial health.

At Akumin, we invest in the well-being of our employees, so you can bring your best self to work each day. You can expect to see the following benefits:

Competitive compensation

Flexible scheduling

Cross training opportunities

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

HSA accounts with employer contributions

401(k) eligibility with employer match

Paid holidays

Defined PTO and sick time programs

Eligibility for benefits will vary based on role type and hours worked.

Akumin Operating Corp. and its divisions are an equal opportunity employer and we believe in strength through diversity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, among other things, age, race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender iden