Assistant Director for Access Operations - Patient Access Organization

Description UCLA Health runs and operates over 280 outpatient clinics located in Southern California with over 3,000,000 outpatient encounters annually. The Patient Access Organization (PAO) serves as the centralized access team for UCLA Health’s ambulatory enterprise, ensuring timely, convenient, and equitable access to care for patients and the communities we serve. Our teams oversee high-volume centralized scheduling and call center operations, new patient referral intake and navigation, enterprise template and capacity management, workforce training and quality oversight, and scheduling pathways and technology optimization, including decision tree development and digital innovations.

We operate at the intersection of operations, technology, and clinical partnership to align supply and demand, streamline workflows, and continuously improve how patients enter and engage with UCLA Health. The Access Administrator serves as the vertical performance integrator for a defined specialty domain (e.g. Primary Care & Pediatrics, Medical Specialties, Surgical Specialties) within the Patient Access Organization.

This leader is accountable for unifying operational execution and performance governance to drive high reliability, quality, and accountability across centralized scheduling and access operations. The role directly oversees Operations Supervisors and Access Performance Coaches and ensures alignment between daily execution, strategic access objectives, quality standards, workforce performance expectations, and enterprise stakeholder commitments.

This position bridges strategy and frontline performance, ensuring service levels, scheduling accuracy, coaching effectiveness, and workflow adherence are managed as an integrated system, not siloed functions. The Access Administrator serves as the primary owner of access performance, workforce effectiveness, and continuous improvement within their respective domain. This role ensures that operational expectations, training strategies, quality standards, and performance improvement efforts are fully integrated and responsive to the unique needs of each area. *4 positions available Salary range: $98,200-$214,600 annual Qualifications Bachelor's Degree in Healthcare Administration, Business, Organizational Development, Education, or related field or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience required.

Master's Degree (MHA, MBA, MPH, or related preferred). 7 years minimum (required) - Progressive Healthcare Operations Leadership. Progress leadership experience in ambulatory access, centralized scheduling, call center operations, or healthcare operations management. Demonstrated increasing scope of responsibility, including oversight of leaders (not only frontline staff). 3 years minimum (required) - Direct management of people leaders.

Experience directly managing supervisors, managers, or equivalent leadership roles. Demonstrated success developing leaders and holding them accountable for performance outcomes. 3 years minimum (required) - Performance management and quality governance – experience overseeing quality assurance programs, performance dashboards, and structured accountability frameworks. Experience leading performance improvement initiatives tied to measurable outcomes. 3 years minimum (required) - Data driven operational leadership – experience interpreting operational KPIs (service level, productivity, quality composite, shrinkage, and workforce metrics).

Demonstrated use of data to drive strategic decision-making and corrective action planning. 3 years minimum (required) - Cross-functional stakeholder engagement – experience collaborating with clinical leaders, IT, revenue cycle, training teams, or executive stakeholders. Demonstrated ability to influence across departments without direct authority. 2 years minimum (preferred) - Process Improvement/Systems Integration – experience leading workflow redesign, lean/sigma initiatives, or operational transformation efforts.

Experience integrating strategy into frontline execution within complex systems.