NYAPRS Note: We encourage anyone who is interested to apply for a recently published job vacancy with the NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH). They are looking for candidates to fill the position of Assistant Commissioner. Please see below for details, including the job description and how to apply.
Agency: Office of Mental Health
Title: Assistant Commissioner, Central Office
Employment Type: Full-Time
Location: NYS Office of Mental Health, 44 Holland Avenue, Albany NY 12229
Description of Duties:
The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) is recruiting to fill the exempt position of Assistant Commissioner, NS. Under the Office of the Executive Deputy Commissioner, the incumbent will coordinate a team of senior level staff and subject matter experts across OMH and partner with key sister agencies such as the Department of Health, the Office of Addiction Supports and Services, and the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities to improve inpatient and emergency mental health services provided by community hospital-based providers. The incumbent will represent and participate in intra and inter-agency, workgroups and serve as the lead for OMH’s strategy across several critical work domains to improve inpatient hospital capacity, quality, and connectedness to the broader public mental health system. Specific duties to be performed may include, but are not limited to, the following:
Overseeing and supporting the return of offline beds to the inpatient Article 28 system.
• Developing and maintaining key performance measures for Article 28 inpatient, mental health emergency services, and ambulatory emergency services volume.
• Evaluating and analyzing community bed availability includes determining current psychiatric bed capacity, identifying challenges for underutilization, and implementing policy solutions to resolve those challenges.
• Communicating with hospitals and their associations and ongoing technical support will be essential to ensuring compliance.
• Managing and advancing the quality of inpatient mental health services provided by community hospital-based providers through the coordination of OMH priority initiatives, meetings, and necessary support and technical assistance activities.
Developing and implementing protocols for Article 28 mental health emergency departments, Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Programs, and inpatient units around patient transport, evaluation, disposition, admission, and discharge.
• Recommending standards of care, clarifying existing hospital activities/protocols regarding psychiatric admission and discharge, and modifying or establishing new policies/processes/ checklists as needed to create equity, and systemic accountability.
• Strategic engagement of academic hospital psychiatry department chairs, hospital leadership, and their associations to ensure robust training of providers and staff.
• Assessing and aligning community ambulatory and support services with the residential system to ensure seamless care.
Coordinate all aspects of the work and participate in cross-program team meetings, track progress of deliverables, draft initial work products for consideration, incorporate team feedback into work products, conduct pertinent research of evidence-based strategies or other innovative solutions, and synthesize information for executive review.
• Working with the Planning Office, evaluating and managing reinvestment-funded services to focus on maximum utility for community local hospital discharge and diversion. • Summarize research and analysis findings in drafts of memos, briefing materials, presentations, correspondence, and reports.
• Communicate policy issues, providing programmatic oversight and technical direction to OMH executive leadership and staff.
• Attends meetings, webinars, and conferences convened with other OMH program areas.
• Serve on committees and special task forces as assigned.
Respond to the needs of the Commissioner and Executive Deputy Commissioner in sensitive and confidential matters consistent with the Commissioner’s priorities.
Minimum Qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree and nine years of relevant experience in health, human services or behavioral health care systems administration.* The preferred candidate will have the ability to manage multi-faceted, high profile, time sensitive tasks. Critical/analytical thinking focused on outcomes. Highly organized. Initiative and follow through. Excellent communication and collaboration. Experience in the mental health, public health, social work, psychology, or other related field. Knowledge of hospital/health system administration and/or state agency operations. Those with lived mental health experience and diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
This is an exempt position; appointees serve at the pleasure of the appointing authority.
*Substitutions: four years of specialized experience or associate’s degree and two years of specialized experience may substitute for bachelor’s degree; J.D. or master’s degree may substitute for one year of specialized experience; Ph.D. may substitute for two years of specialized experience
How to Apply:
To be considered, interested candidates should email a cover letter and resume as an attachment in Microsoft Word or PDF format to omhhrm@omh.ny.gov. Please include the title of the position and Vacancy ID #138843 in the subject line of your email when applying.
You are advised that, should you accept a job offer with the Office of Mental Health, you may be required to be fingerprinted and pay a fingerprint fee.
