Policy Consultant

Reporting to the Director of Policy, Planning and Evaluation, the Policy Consultant’s role is to facilitate and accelerate the integration of policies, procedures, guidelines, medical directives and protocols for Health PEI. The Policy Consultant is accountable for ensuring the development and implementation of a policy system that is reflective of best practice and is continuously reviewed and updated.

**Duties**:

- Ensure quality of service delivery by overseeing and providing direction and guidance for the policy process: pre-development, development, approval, implementation and monitoring.
- Facilitating collaboration among different sites, services and clinical or administrative groups with similar policy needs or requiring alignment in their work. As a result of this work, scoping and bundling of policy work throughout the organization takes place promoting efficiencies, preventing unnecessary duplication, standardizing practice and service delivery.
- Advise on and/or conduct comprehensive literature reviews and jurisdictional scans and consult with experts internal and external to Health PEI.
- Conduct analysis and research on issues and trends of current or future relevance to Health PEI leadership (e.g. new clinical services/treatments/providers) through the review of reports from national and provincial organizations, media sources, federal/provincial government announcements and current health policy publications.
- Synthesize information on evidence-based practices and current standards and results from literature review/jurisdictional scan to inform policy development.
- Provide recommendations to policy author(s), teams and leadership ensuring appropriate legal review and stakeholder consultation has been conducted, legislative requirements, professional and organizational bylaws, rule and regulations, accreditation standards, government and organizational requirements and best practices are addressed.
- Develops policy(s) as a member of working groups or at the request/direction of senior leaders for policy projects that are Health PEI priorities and reflective of public policy change.
- Provide direction to policy author(s) and leadership on the approval process and appropriate approval bodies based on policy standards, legal requirements and best practices.
- Provide direction and/or guidance based on policy and change management best practices for the implementation of policies.
- Support clinical and administrative teams to plan their policy development work (approach for existing policies, building policies for a new service/program, prioritizing policy development, and/or organization of policies).
- In collaboration with the Director of Policy, Planning and Evaluation, advise senior leadership on operational and public policy issues, policy trends in health care, impacts of legislative and/or practice changes on policy, policy options and challenges.
- Ensure that policy documents support the mission, vision and values of Health PEI.
- Ensure that policy documents are based on evidence and best practices and integrate safe practices.
- Facilitate, establish and maintain internal Health PEI and external linkages, partnerships and relationships across different areas and professions including but not limited to clinical, administrative, government, academic, legal, health professionals, regulatory bodies, citizen/community groups to advance integrated policies.
- Engage with staff through the delivery of training and educational material throughout Health PEI (and with external partners as needed).
- Develop and provide formal and informal policy education to all staff including policy authors and leaders to support the development and implementation of relevant, credible and professional documents for the organization and a culture of policy awareness.

**Minimum Qualifications**:

- A master’s degree in health or social sciences, business administration or a related field supplemented by training in research methods, policy development, program planning and development, project management, change management and design thinking.
- Demonstrated equivalencies may be considered
- Extensive (5 years +) knowledge and expert skills in the following areas: policy development, policy and program research, planning, program design and development, performance monitoring and reporting, research methods, change management, project management and group facilitation.
- Extensive working knowledge of the healthcare system.
- Considerable experience in consulting, advising and leading senior management to achieve goals and outcomes;
- Ability to carry out complex analysis and organize, plan and think strategically.
- Ability to work comfortably in a complex and changing environment and juggle competing priorities.
- Demonstrated leadership skills, taking initiative to identify problems, engage key stakeholders and generate a process or means to achieving solutions.
- Strong interpersonal and colla