Lead Terminologist

Summary/Objective

Synensys is seeking a Lead Terminologist that serves as the senior clinical terminology expert responsible for providing authoritative guidance, leadership, and oversight for terminology development, governance, implementation, and interoperability initiatives. This role supports enterprise health information exchange, data standardization, electronic health record (EHR) modernization, clinical decision support, and health informatics programs across the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and external partners, including the Department of Defense (DoD), Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization (OEHRM), Office of Connected Care, and other federal healthcare organizations.

The Lead Terminologist provides strategic direction for the development, implementation, maintenance, and optimization of standardized clinical terminologies to support interoperable health information systems, reusable clinical data, regulatory compliance, and improved patient care. This position acts as both a subject matter expert and technical leader, ensuring the quality, consistency, accuracy, and governance of clinical terminology resources, ontologies, information models, and mappings used across enterprise healthcare environments.

This posting is intended to identify qualified candidates for anticipated future opportunities with Synensys. At this time, this is not an active vacancy and no immediate hiring decision is expected. Candidate applications will be reviewed and retained for consideration as positions become available based on business needs, contract awards, funding, or organizational growth.

Essential Functions

Clinical Terminology Leadership

• Provide strategic leadership and expert guidance for the development, governance, implementation, and maintenance of clinical terminology solutions.
• Serve as the principal advisor on terminology standards, terminology services, and semantic interoperability initiatives.
• Lead and mentor terminology resources supporting contract objectives and healthcare modernization efforts.
• Define terminology strategies, priorities, and governance processes that promote standardization and enterprise interoperability.
• Provide recommendations regarding the adoption, implementation, and optimization of national and international terminology standards.

Terminology Development and Management

• Develop, curate, maintain, and enhance clinical terminology content, ontologies, taxonomies, code systems, and value sets.
• Create and maintain terminology models that accurately represent clinical concepts and healthcare business requirements.
• Lead terminology lifecycle management activities, including versioning, updates, release planning, and change control.
• Ensure terminology content aligns with evolving clinical practice, regulatory requirements, and emerging healthcare standards.
• Develop and maintain clinical data dictionaries and semantic models supporting healthcare information exchange and analytics.

Interoperability and Standards Implementation

• Provide subject matter expertise related to healthcare interoperability standards, including HL7 FHIR, US Core, USCDI, and related implementation guides.
• Support EHR modernization efforts through the integration and application of standardized clinical terminologies.
• Collaborate with healthcare informatics, data management, and software development teams to ensure semantic interoperability.
• Design and support FHIRbased information models and profiles that accurately represent clinical information.
• Evaluate emerging interoperability standards and recommend their incorporation into enterprise terminology solutions.

Terminology Mapping and Data Standardization

• Lead semantic mapping initiatives between local and standardized terminology systems.
• Map clinical, administrative, laboratory, pharmacy, diagnostic, treatment, and biomarker data to recognized healthcare standards.
• Support the normalization, harmonization, and standardization of healthcare data from diverse healthcare systems and sources.
• Establish methodologies for translating and transforming healthcare data while maintaining semantic integrity and clinical accuracy.
• Ensure accurate representation of clinical concepts across systems, programs, and healthcare environments.

Analysis and Program Support

• Analyze existing and proposed clinical standards, policies, regulations, terminology solutions, and health information exchange initiatives.
• Assess feasibility, implementation impacts, practicality, risks, and effectiveness of terminologyrelated projects and programs.
• Translate clinical knowledge specifications into structured terminology frameworks, business rules, and implementation guidance.
• Support stakeholder requirements gathering, workflow analysis, and solution development activities.
• Collaborate with clinical, technical, operational, and program stakeholders to identify terminology requirements and solutions.

EHR Modernization and Clinical Informatics

• Support VA and partner organizations in EHR modernization and digital health transformation initiatives.
• Evaluate relationships among clinical terminologies, information models, clinical workflows, data architectures, and healthcare technologies.
• Provide consultation regarding terminology integration into clinical information systems and healthcare applications.
• Ensure terminology services support accurate clinical documentation, patient care delivery, quality reporting, and health information exchange.

Quality Assurance and Compliance

• Develop and oversee terminology quality assurance processes and validation methodologies.
• Establish testing plans and quality control procedures to ensure terminology accuracy, completeness, consistency, and reliability.
• Validate terminology implementations, mappings, and semantic interoperability requirements.
• Ensure compliance with federal regulations, healthcare standards, policies, and industry best practices.
• Maintain awareness of healthcare regulatory requirements impacting terminology services and interoperability programs.

Stakeholder Engagement and Consultation

• Serve as a clinical terminology consultant to program offices, project teams, and federal healthcare stakeholders.
• Facilitate discussions and consensusbuilding activities among clinical, technical, and operational stakeholders.
• Develop technical documentation, implementation guidance, standards recommendations, and executive briefings.
• Support enterprise governance bodies and standards organizations as needed.

Competencies

• Strong knowledge of healthcare interoperability and semantic technologies.
• Ability to lead multidisciplinary teams and complex technical initiatives.
• Excellent analytical, problemsolving, and systemsthinking skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication abilities.
• Knowledge of healthcare regulatory and standards environments.
• Ability to translate clinical concepts into technical specifications and terminology models.

Required Education and Experience

• Minimum Master's degree in Nursing, Health Informatics, Clinical Informatics, Health Information Management, Public Health, Healthcare Administration, or related clinical discipline.
• Minimum of ten (10) years of experience supporting clinical terminology development, implementation, governance, or interoperability initiatives.
• Eight (8) additional years of relevant experience may be substituted for educational requirements.
• Demonstrated expertise with healthcare terminology standards, including: SNOMED CT, LOINC, ICD10CM, CPT, HCPCS, RxNorm.
• Experience supporting healthcare interoperability standards, including: HL7 FHIR, US Core, USCDI.
• Experience performing terminology mapping, semantic interoperability, normalization, and data standardization activities.
• Experience supporting EHR systems, health information exchange, clinical informatics, or healthcare modernization programs.
• Ability to analyze complex clinical and technical requirements and translate them into implementable terminology solutions.

Preferred Education and Experience

• Experience supporting the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, or other federal healthcare agencies.
• Experience supporting largescale EHR modernization initiatives.
• Knowledge of enterprise terminology services, ontology management, and semantic technologies.
• Experience supporting realworld data (RWD), realworld evidence (RWE), healthcare analytics, or population health initiatives.
• Experience developing FHIR profiles, implementation guides, data dictionaries, or information models.
• Professional certifications in health informatics, clinical informatics, healthcare information management, or terminology standards.

Position Type/Expected Hours of Work

This is a full-time position, generally performed during standard business hours, Monday through Friday. The position may require occasional work outside business hours to meet business needs.

Travel

Travel may be required to visit VA Medical Centers and Outpatient Clinics

Additional Eligibility Qualifications

• Must be authorized to work in the United States
• Must pass VA credentialing and background check; and comply with all safety, infection control, security and facility policies

Other Duties

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

Synensys is committed to providing its employees with a work environment that is free of unlawful discrimination on the basis of any legally protected status including race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, citizenship, disability, protected veterans or other status protected by law.

About Synensys LLC

Synensys was founded to address safety and quality gaps in high-risk industries such as Healthcare, Aviation, and Defense. These gaps or hazards lead to financial losses, serious injury, loss of organizational reputation, and even death. Our founder, Dr. Stephen Powell, experienced the death of his father in 2002 due to a preventable medical error. He quickly realized that his family’s loss was not unique or an isolated incident. Preventable patient harm and death due to medical errors became the third leading cause of death in the U.S. Dr. Powell believed we could do better, and 20 years later, Synensys has helped over 500 high-risk organizations in the U.S. and 11 other countries achieve better outcomes through the development of safer systems and operators.