Travel: 15%
Organizational Summary
Upstream USA is a fast-growing, national nonprofit committed to ensuring that equitable, patient-centered contraceptive care is made available to any patient and is fully integrated into the health system as part of basic health care. We envision a future where all patients are screened for their contraceptive needs and offered patient-centered contraceptive counseling that’s free from bias, noncoercive, trauma-informed and delivered by knowledgeable providers and support staff following best medical practices and evidence-based guidelines. We believe all patients should be able to access the contraceptive service of their choice – when they want it and where it is convenient for them to get it.
We do this by partnering with healthcare organizations, providing them free training, education and technical assistance. Surveys from patients receiving care at Upstream-trained healthcare organizations consistently show that patients feel heard and respected, and are able to access the contraceptive method of their choice.
To meet the growing needs in our country, Upstream has launched a national expansion to transform contraceptive care in more than 700 healthcare organizations across the United States by 2030, reaching 5 million patients of reproductive age. Already, our work with more than 130 healthcare partners in nearly forty percent of the country helps integrate much needed contraceptive services across the spectrum of healthcare, including primary care practices.
Upstream is funded primarily through philanthropic individuals and foundations, and does not accept funding from pharmaceutical companies. Upstream’s budget has grown from $1.7 million just six years ago to approximately $60 million in 2024. Upstream’s work has also garnered attention from many leading publications including Harvard Public Health, Bloomberg, MedPage Today, and Politico.
Position Summary
The Senior Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Manager is an exciting opportunity to help support Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning activities in close collaboration with Upstream’s Practice Transformation Teams (PTT), particularly in the use of data with our Health Center Organization (HCO) partners to support practice change in contraceptive care delivery.
The Sr MEL Manager will lead a team of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Specialists (MELS) to facilitate the use of data by both Upstream and our HCO partners in contraceptive care practice improvement efforts. The MEL Manager will bring their expertise in people and team management, process improvement, and using EHR data and population health analytics for improvement in healthcare to support the team in this work. They will also manage their own portfolio of active HCOs, leading data-informed discussions with PTT and HCO teams.
The Sr MEL Manager will also support the Director of Learning and Outcome Studies in synthesizing data and supporting analyses in order to share learnings for both internal and external audiences, including the use of findings to inform organizational strategy. They will bring their advanced report development experience with PowerBI/Tableau/Excel to build and manage reports to support internal reporting and monitoring processes. Join a passionate, committed team as we implement our contraceptive care initiative nationwide.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Under the direction of, and in concert with, the Director of Learning and Outcome Studies:
- Manage a team of 3-5 staff to support clinical practice change with data, including providing supervision, mentorship and continuous improvement strategies to provide an aligned, unified approach and high quality set of supports for our program teams and partners
- Leverage expertise in population health analytics to support the analysis of Upstream’s suite of contraceptive care metrics relative to other reporting systems (ex. UDS for FQHCs)
- Lead the continued development of PowerBI internal reports and dashboards to support ongoing Upstream program monitoring across HCOs
- Become an expert in using reports for Upstream’s third-party data platform (Azara DRVS) that house aggregate patient data from partner agency electronic health records (EHR) systems
- Serve as a primary point of contact for interpreting data trends related to HCO contraceptive care program implementation for internal program team members and external health center partners, including Upstream’s custom suite of contraceptive care measures
- Build reports using PowerBI, Excel, Salesforce, Google Suite, and third party data platforms
- Develop or prepare innovative, succinct, and well-written summary reports, visualizations and presentations for both internal and external stakeholders about HCO or cross-HCO level progress and results
- Present and recommend on ways to improve Upstream’s program delivery
- Execute a strategy to scale a framework that supports contraceptive care practice change within the Upstream program
- Work with the Director of Learning and Outcome Studies on specific projects as needed
- Additional duties as assigned
Required Education, Experience, Knowledge, Skills and Ability
Upstream celebrates and fosters an inclusive work environment and encourages people of all identities, perspectives and backgrounds to apply.
Our ideal candidate will demonstrate aptitude in the specified areas below:
- 6-8+ years of directly relevant work experience
- 2-3 years experience managing teams
- Excellent organizational, and project management skills, with outstanding attention to detail
- Knowledge and experience in leading or significantly participating in quality improvement or performance improvement initiatives in the health care setting
- Advanced experience in healthcare data analysis
- Experience working in a health care setting (FQHC, health center)
- Experience working with electronic health records (EHR) data, health data systems and infrastructure
- Experience or familiarity with improvement frameworks in a health care setting
- Experience in a fast moving, scaling organization; experience operationalizing a function to scale
- Advanced experience with data-visualization and related tools (PowerBI preferred)
- Excellent interpersonal and meeting facilitation skills. Builds and maintains positive, productive relationships with colleagues, staff, consultants, and clients
- Superb communication skills, and demonstrated ability to function independently and professionally in a public-facing role, and with internal Upstream staff at all levels
- Confidence working independently, exercising good judgment, and making informed decisions with limited direction
- Exhibit flexibility and agility in response to changing priorities
- Solid organizational mission alignment
- Commitment to collaboration and teamwork
- Demonstrate ability and willingness to continuously acquire new competencies and accept new challenges
- Intermediate skill level with Excel and Google G-Suite including Mail, Calendar, Drive
Other Upstream Staff Expectations
- Upstream USA’s COVID-19 Vaccine Policy requires employees to have completed a COVID-19 vaccine primary series unless a medical or religious exemption is approved. As a condition of employment, newly hired employees must provide proof of their COVID-19 vaccination or, if applicable, request a medical or religious exemption.
- All Upstreamers must also be able to attend work-related in-person meetings and functions as needed.
- In our hybrid work environments, there is a basic expectation that our Upstreamers will ensure that their work from home setups will have reliable access to phone and Internet to ensure connectivity to their teams.
- At Upstream we gather for moments that matter for training, teaming and connection. Our teams come together for occasional in person meetings and organizational retreats. As part of our hybrid work practices, this travel expectation will be applicable for all Upstreamers, even those based remotely.
- Engage in EDI learning & development, community engagement, and culture building activities up to 5% FTE (i.e., 2 work hours per 40 hour work week). Examples include attending trainings, conferences and summits, volunteering time, participating in local community events, mentoring and learning, participating in Communities of Belonging or Culture Council, developing language acquisition, learning universal design principles, and using professional development benefits for EDI topics, among other activities.
Valued and Non-Essential Education, Experience, Knowledge, Skills and Ability (Not required to apply)
- Master’s-level degree in public health, health science, evaluation or statistics field highly preferred
Attributes
The ideal candidate will embody and embrace our core values which serve as our operating principles:
- We keep our mission at the center; Upstream’s mission is to ensure that equitable, patient-centered contraceptive care is basic healthcare
- We trust each other; we are reliable, empathetic, compassionately direct, and confident in each others’ ability to do the same
- We work every day to build an equitable, diverse and inclusive culture; we respect the backgrounds contexts and experiences of individuals, teams and partners in our interactions
- We bring joy to our work; we create opportunities to celebrate, connect and strengthen relationships with one another.
Travel Requirements
This role will require up to 15 % of business travel. All Upstreamers can expect a minimum of 8 days of business travel per year to attend 1-2 annual organizational retreats and two annual team/department meetings.
Upstream Benefits
Upstream USA offers a comprehensive benefit package including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, long and short term disability, 401K with a match, generous vacation, personal, sick and holiday time off, parental leave, professional development, a fitness and cell phone allowance for all full time employees and part time employees who work a minimum of 24 hours per week.
Hiring Range
The hiring range for this role is $115,000 - $130,000. Final offers for this position will be based upon several factors including the scope of the role, market compensation analysis, position requirements, candidate’s experience level and capabilities, internal pay equity considerations and will be made within the parameters of Upstream USA's compensation framework and philosophy.
Hiring Process
Candidates who advance in our preliminary review process will have an opportunity to discuss the position, their employment background and lived experience with a member of our talent acquisition team by telephone. Those who advance to subsequent steps in our interview process may participate in up to three rounds of meetings by Zoom or in person and in a thought exercise/case study assignment. Each round could consist of multiple meetings with various Upstreamers.
EDI Vision Statement
Internally, we envision promoting equity by reducing disparities in the Upstream talent lifecycle and engagement, cultivating a diverse workforce and inclusive culture, and fostering power sharing when we make decisions.
EDI Guiding Principles
Through Equity, both in the workplace and in contraceptive care, we address root causes that enable disparities to occur, acknowledge that different resources and opportunities may be needed to reach fairer outcomes, and implement systems-level changes that are sustainable over time.
Through Diversity, we acknowledge, respect, and celebrate the collective mixture of differences and similarities of Upstreamers and our community partners. At Upstream, we value the diversity of identities at all intersections, while at the same time centering racial diversity.
Through Inclusion, we succeed at creating a culture of belonging that embraces differences in identities and experiences by building trust, joy, and psychological safety. We cherish and elevate these differences through power-sharing in how things get done internally and in service of our mission.
Communities of Belonging
Serving as employee resource groups for Upstreamers, Communities of Belonging assist in advancing our equity, diversity, and inclusion journey. They assist in instilling organizational values in our work and support our EDI vision. Open to all employees, Communities of Belonging create opportunities for leadership development, community engagement, support, and resource mobilization.
Upstream Careers
At Upstream, we embrace diversity. We nurture it and we thrive on it because it benefits our organization, our partners, and our community. Our goal is to attract, develop and retain exceptional people, and to create a work environment that is dynamic, rewarding and enables each of us to realize our potential. Upstream is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, genetic information, gender identity or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know. Learn more about working at Upstream, our values, and our commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Upstream USA participates in E-Verify.
Upstream Headquarters
2 Oliver Street, Suite 402, Boston, MA 02109
No phone calls please.
Be advised that we do not ever conduct hiring interviews via text or email. Please protect yourself by learning more about our hiring practices and common red flags to look out for.
