Systematic Review Methodologist

Are you a systematic review professional looking to support a nonprofit organization? Are you a motivated, driven individual with a passion for the healthcare industry and medical specialty societies? If so, ASPS may have the perfect job for you!

The Systematic Review Methodologist manages multiple evidence-based medicine projects relevant to ASPS members and is responsible for coordinating and collaborating with internal staff and external content experts to generate both rapid and in-depth landscaping and evidence mapping, as most appropriate. This individual develops search strategies, protocols, extraction templates, analytic plans and written reports and conducts systematic reviews and meta-analyses to determine the effectiveness of interventions, programs, policies and practices across a range of patient populations. Systematic reviews produced in collaboration with the Quality team may be standalone manuscripts or lay the groundwork for the development of other ASPS content tools and resources for a variety of audiences, including physicians, patients, payers and regulatory officials. This role is additionally responsible for providing technical advice and serving as an internal consultant on methodological and analytic issues to ASPS staff and committee workgroup members.

What You Will Do

Assessment/Advisory Function

• Contribute substantively, thoughtfully and creatively to the conceptualization and design of ASPS Quality and Patient Safety products.
• Define research question(s) and translate review questions into the Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcomes (PICO) format
• Lead staff and member volunteers in planning appropriate and targeted search strategies and literature evaluation criteria for reviews, reports and guidelines, given articulated research objectives.
• Provide assessment of scope and feasibility of proposed topics to prioritize the research interests and needs of ASPS membership.

Analysis Function

• Contribute to ongoing evidence synthesis projects by conducting structured and/or systematic literature reviews, including screening of articles for eligibility based on pre-defined criteria, data extraction for relevant outcomes and risk of bias assessment.
• Demonstrate and apply an understanding of various study designs and assess the quality of studies in the literature (e.g., internal validity, external validity, relevance, ethics approval, etc.) and document quality thresholds (e.g., minimum sample size) with the goal of including studies that minimize bias, while thoughtfully maximizing use of available evidence.
• Collaborate with colleagues as needed to conduct duplicate screening and data extraction and to resolve any discrepancies as described in the protocol.
• Determine appropriate analytical methods (e.g., meta-analysis) for each research objective and carry out data synthesis using appropriate statistical and/or psychometric methods.
• Synthesize data quantitatively and qualitatively and provide thoughtful interpretations for staff and committee workgroup members to qualify or contextualize results (e.g., impact of inappropriate analysis on study results).
• Organize data into manageable, unbiased and effective databases with the goal of yielding actionable information to guide decisions.

Writing/Reporting

• Author comprehensive reports and communicate results to the appropriate audience and assist in incorporating the evidence into designated ASPS tools and resources.
• Help staff and workgroups make decisions by cleaning, organizing, analyzing and presenting large amounts of data.
• Incorporate diverse stakeholder and patient voices to contextualize findings.
• Collaborate with Marketing and Communications to disseminate products and collect feedback from peer-review and public comment; integrate workgroup response into final manuscripts or content prodcuts.
• Co-author publications by drafting, editing and formatting manuscripts; guide approved manuscripts from submission to print by submitting to PRS and coordinating with editorial staff.

Project Management

• Independently manage project timelines and deliverables, identifying issues with the progress or design of the literature review and escalate issues that may significantly impact deliverables or timelines.
• Manage and guide designated committee workgroup members throughout systematic review process.
• Assist in leading project kick-off meetings.
• Assist with training on evidence synthesis for volunteer workgroup members.
• Assist in developing budget estimates for projects.
• Edit and develop relevant SOPs, departmental guidance documents and project management templates and instructions to drive continual process improvement.
• Document search and review strategies to ensure reproducibility.
• Assist in development of strategy and process to systematically review and update ASPS portfolio of Clinical Practice Guidelines and other Quality and Patient Safety products, including monitoring published literature for new research and other evidence.

Other Duties

• Monitor new products, software and tools to improve workflow efficiency for systematic review and guideline management.
• Fulfill other duties as assigned
• Some travel
• Evening conference calls (typically 2 per quarter)
• Weekend meetings (typically 1-2 per year)

What You Will Need

• Bachelor's degree required. Master of Public Health or health-related Master's degree preferred.
• 5-7 years experience analyzing scientific research required, healthcare specialty preferred.
• Expertise in designing, planning, executing and managing systematic review studies in healthcare domain. Identifying, collecting, processing, analyzing and cataloging data according to established protocol, procedures and standards, as appropriate to specific objectives of the research study.
• Applied knowledge of the interpretation and use of biostatistics required, including but not limited to the appropriate application of sample size calculations, parametric and non-parametric tests and regression analyses.
• Strong understanding of evidence-based medicine concepts and tools required, including the National standards for trustworthy guidelines from the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine); PRISMA diagrams; formulation of PICO questions; clinical research design, risk of bias and quality appraisal tools such as ROB-2, ROBINS-I and QUADAS; and evidence to decision frameworks, such as that employed in the GRADE methodology
• Strong organizational and interpersonal skills to ensure effective communication, with the ability to produce concise, high-level summaries and briefings and translate complex research methods and findings for a practitioner and policy audience.
• Experience with academic publishing required, including drafting, revising and submitting manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals.
• Openness to accept and appropriately implement peer review critiques is a key to success.
• Experience in library and information science, particularly in literature search strategies, medical database syntax and reference management software (Endnote preferred).
• Advanced experience in project management, with a demonstrated ability to manage several multi-year projects simultaneously.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office with a high level of comfort learning new applications.
• Experience with databases and tools employed in medical research (PubMed, Cochrane, Embase) and statistical analysis (SPSS, SAS and/or STATA).
• Must be self-motivated with the ability to work independently and in a team environment.
• Experience in health/medical association management a plus.