Manager | IT Testing, Change, & Environmental Relations | Full-Time

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.

Additional Information

• Organization: Corporate Services
• Department: Ascension Helios Technology Ex
• Shift: Day Job
• Union Code: Not Applicable