GENERAL SUMMARY:

The Manager - IT Testing, Change, and Environment/Release is responsible for the day-to-day leadership, coordination, and operational execution across Epic testing, Epic-aligned change management, environment allocation, and release management. This role ensures safe, predictable, and high-quality delivery of Epic functionality while protecting system integrity, clinical operations, and organizational readiness.

The Manager leads a combined team supporting testing (integrated and supporting other test types), Epic change coordination, and environment/release operations, and serves as a key operational partner to application teams, infrastructure, PMO, and enterprise IT governance groups. The role operates within established enterprise change and governance frameworks while providing Epic-specific expertise, coordination, and execution. The Manager serves as a 24x7 operational escalation point and drives continuous improvement through process discipline, metrics, and effective use of tooling.

PRINCIPLE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Testing Leadership and Oversight
  • Oversees integrated Epic testing and ensures the team supports other testing types (application, unit, MRT, regression, etc.) as able.
  • Organizes, directs, and manages testing activities for Epic upgrades, Service Updates (SUs), enhancements, fixes, and major initiatives.
  • Coordinates testing activities across iterative releases, balancing test milestones with environment availability and release schedules.
  • Ensures testing deliverables, milestones, risks, and outcomes are clearly documented and communicated to stakeholders.
  • Assists with testing strategy across decentralized application teams, providing guidance, standards, and risk awareness.
• Change Management (Epic-Aligned)
  • Oversees Epic-specific change coordination while aligning to enterprise IT change management and ITSM frameworks.
  • Serves as an active member of the Change Advisory Board (CAB), providing operational insight and advocating for Epic system integrity and readiness.
  • Partners with the central IT Change team to ensure changes are properly vetted, packaged, scheduled, and communicated.
  • Enforces appropriate change controls across production and non-production environments to protect test validity and operational stability.
• Environment Management •
  • Plans, schedules, and controls deployment and utilization of all non-production Epic environments.
  • Balances project, enhancement, testing, and operational needs across shared environments while mitigating conflicts and risks.
  • Establishes and maintains clear purpose definitions for each environment in partnership with infrastructure and application teams.
  • Coordinates with infrastructure, access administration, and other IT partners to ensure environment readiness, availability, and appropriate access controls.
  • Maintains environment calendars, utilization views, and forward-looking capacity plans.
• Release Management
  • Oversees Epic release management activities, including upgrades, enhancements, Special Updates, and fixes.
  • Maintains release integrity across non-production and production environments.
  • Identifies and communicates interdependencies, risks, and readiness concerns associated with releases.
  • Participates in operational readiness reviews and go/no-go discussions for Epic releases and major events.
• Process Ownership, Governance, and Continuous Improvement
  • Serves as the process owner for Epic environment and release management tooling, calendars, and supporting workflows.
  • Develops, maintains, and enforces standard operating procedures, documentation, and audit trails across testing, change, environment, and release activities.
  • Chairs or facilitates governance forums such as the Environment Council to drive alignment, transparency, and decision-making.
  • Maintains compliance with SOC, CAB, ITIL/ITSM, regulatory, and Epic standards.
  • Captures operational signals, lessons learned, and metrics to drive continuous improvement and risk reduction.
  • Performs continual review of emerging AI, automation, and AIOps capabilities applicable to testing, change, environment, and release management; evaluates tools for risk reduction, efficiency, and scalability; and partners with enterprise teams to pilot or adopt appropriate solutions where value is demonstrated.
• Operational Readiness and Escalation
  • Serves as a 24x7 operational escalation point for testing, change, environment, and release-related issues.
  • Manages escalation paths and coordination across application, infrastructure, vendor, and operational teams.
  • Supports readiness for Epic upgrades, go-lives, environment freezes, DR cutover/cutback events, and critical fix installs.
• Financial and People Leadership
  • Supports budget planning and maintenance activities by providing operational inputs, utilization data, and forecasting insights (budget ownership retained at the Director level).
  • Provides direct leadership and coaching to a team of approximately five direct reports, including testing leads/analysts and change management resources.
  • Supports matrixed resources and prepares for future growth as scope expands.
  • Fosters a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Healthcare Informatics, or a related field.
• Minimum of five (5) years of experience in Epic or EMR testing, environment management, release management, and/or change coordination.
• Minimum of two (2) years of prior management or supervisory experience.
• Demonstrated experience operating within enterprise change management and ITSM frameworks.
• Demonstrated experience partnering with operational support teams to review post go-live defects and incidents, analyze trends arising from incident tickets, and feed those learnings back into testing strategy, scope, and process improvement activities.
• Practical working knowledge of automation, AI-assisted tooling, or productivity platforms used to scale testing, change, environment, or release activities without proportional increases in staffing (e.g., test automation, workflow automation, analytics, or AI-assisted planning and analysis).
• Strong analytical, written, and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to coordinate across technical, clinical, and operational stakeholders.

CERTIFICATIONS/LICENSURES REQUIRED:

• Epic certifications preferred, including Data Courier, HODs, or other environment related certifications/badges.
• Certification or experience in SDLC, Release Management, Project Management, or ITIL preferred.