Manager, Immunohematology Reference Lab

Job Description

Job Description

Position Title: Manager Immunohematology Reference Lab

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The Manager, Consultation & Reference Laboratory is responsible for the effective management and daily operations of the Consultation & Reference (C&R) Laboratory, ensuring the delivery of safe, accurate, timely, and high-quality laboratory services to patients, hospitals, healthcare providers, and internal customers.

Reporting to the Director responsible for C&R Laboratory services, the position provides operational and technical leadership for laboratory operations, staff performance, quality and regulatory compliance, competency, customer service, resource management, and continuous improvement.

The Manager serves as a key liaison with the Medical Director, internal departments, and external customers and is responsible for maintaining a high-performing, compliant, and customer-focused laboratory environment.

Just For You:

• Career advancement.

• Engaging and exciting opportunity to SAVE LIVES.

Tips to thrive in our culture:

• Embody our Core Values of Commitment, Integrity, and Respect

• Work to actively create experiences that inspire others to save lives, each and every day.

• Embrace doing it right, making connections, and creating desired experiences.

• Comply with all organizational policies and standards, including safety rules, and be willing to report actual and potential violations to the appropriate supervisor or manager.

In this role, you will:

Laboratory Operations & Quality

• Manages daily C&R Laboratory operations, ensuring safe, accurate, timely, efficient, and compliant service delivery.

• Ensures appropriate staffing, scheduling, workflow, workload distribution, and operational coverage across multiple shifts.

• Monitors and reports on laboratory workload, turnaround times, productivity, quality indicators, and service performance and addresses issues as appropriate.

• Ensures compliance with applicable FDA, AABB, CLIA, OSHA , accreditation, and organizational requirements.

• Maintains effective quality control and quality assurance practices and ensures appropriate investigation, documentation, escalation, and resolution of quality events.

• Supports regulatory inspections, accreditation surveys, audits, and internal assessments and ensures findings are appropriately addressed.

• Ensures laboratory policies, procedures, SOPs, forms, and technical documentation are maintained and current.

Technical & Competency Management

• Provides technical and operational leadership to laboratory staff and ensures required qualifications, training, and competency are maintained.

• Oversees initial and ongoing competency assessments and addresses identified skill or training gaps.

• Partners with the Medical Director and appropriate technical leaders on complex laboratory, quality, and patient-care matters.

• Supports the evaluation and implementation of new methodologies, equipment, technologies, and process improvements.

• Communicates technical results and recommendations to hospital blood banks, physicians, and transfusion services.

People Leadership

• Directly supervises, coaches, and develops laboratory staff and establishes clear performance expectations, goals, and accountability.

• Supports onboarding, training, performance management, employee engagement, retention, and professional development.

• Identifies staffing, capability, and succession needs and supports development of a strong technical workforce.

• Promotes a culture of teamwork, accountability, professionalism, safety, and continuous learning.

Customer & Interdepartmental Relations

• Maintains effective relationships with hospitals, healthcare providers, internal departments, and other C&R customers.

• Serves as a point of escalation for customer, operational, and technical issues and ensures timely resolution.

• Communicates laboratory capabilities, service expectations, requirements, and changes to relevant stakeholders.

• Works collaboratively with the Medical Director and other departments to support coordinated, high-quality service delivery.

• Resource & Performance Management

• Supports preparation and monitoring of the annual C&R Laboratory budget and promotes responsible use of departmental resources.

• Provides input into staffing, equipment, supplies, technology, and other resource requirements.

• Compiles, reviews, and reports laboratory operational and quality statistics and uses data to identify trends, risks, and improvement opportunities.

• Provides regular updates to leadership on laboratory performance, staffing, quality, customer service, and operational issues.

Continuous Improvement & Compliance

• Identifies and implements opportunities to improve laboratory processes, workflow, quality, turnaround time, customer service, and operational efficiency.

• Participates in investigations, root-cause analysis, corrective and preventive actions, and other quality improvement activities.

• Promotes a culture in which employees identify and appropriately escalate quality, safety, and compliance concerns.

• Ensures employees understand and comply with organizational policies, laboratory procedures, safety requirements, confidentiality, EEO, and other applicable organizational standards.

• Performs other duties as assigned. Management retains discretion to add to or modify responsibilities based on organizational needs.

We need someone who has:

• Bachelor's degree in Medical Laboratory Science, Clinical Laboratory Science, Biomedical Science, Biology, or a related scientific/healthcare discipline OR

• Advanced degree in Healthcare Administration, Business Administration, Laboratory Management, or a related discipline preferred.

• 6 – 10 years of progressively responsible laboratory experience, preferably within a blood bank, transfusion service, reference laboratory, hospital laboratory, or similarly regulated laboratory environment.

• 5 - 10 years of supervisory or management experience preferred.

• Demonstrated experience supervising laboratory personnel and managing day-to-day laboratory operations.

• Demonstrated knowledge of laboratory quality management and regulatory requirements.

• Experience with quality investigations, corrective actions, audits, inspections, or accreditation activities.

• Experience with laboratory metrics, workload management, staffing, and resource planning.

• Experience working collaboratively with medical leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.

• Current professional certification appropriate to the laboratory discipline, specifically certification as a Specialist in Blood Banking (SBB) or international equivalent , as required by the position and applicable regulatory requirements.

• Maintains all required certifications, licenses, registrations, and continuing education requirements.

We prefer:

• Blood banking/transfusion medicine experience.

• Immunohematology Reference Laboratory experience.

• Experience with complex immunohematology/reference testing.

• Knowledge of FDA, AABB, and CLIA requirements.

• SBB certification or international equivalent

• Experience with regulatory inspections and accreditation surveys.

• Experience with quality improvement and laboratory performance management.

• Experience with laboratory information systems and data analysis.

• Demonstrated experience developing and mentoring laboratory professionals.

• Experience managing staffing and resources in a highly service-dependent laboratory environment.
  

Physical Demands:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Ability to sit, stand, walk, and work at a computer for extended periods.

• Ability to move throughout laboratory and operational areas.

• Ability to perform duties requiring standing for extended periods.

• Ability to lift and move laboratory materials and supplies within established safety guidelines.

• Ability to wear required PPE.

• Ability to work in refrigerated or temperature-controlled environments when required

Work Environment:

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

This position works primarily within a laboratory environment and may also operate in office, manufacturing, processing, refrigerated, and other controlled environments as required.

The position may involve exposure to biological specimens, laboratory equipment, chemicals, and other conditions associated with a clinical/reference laboratory environment.

The position generally operates during normal business hours; however, flexibility is required based on operational and laboratory service needs.

The incumbent must be available to respond to urgent operational, technical, quality, customer, or patient-safety matters outside normal working hours , including evenings, weekends, and holidays as required.

Who We Are:

Since 1975, Gulf Coast Blood has been one of the nation’s largest community blood centers, serving 170 hospitals across 26 counties. Headquartered in Houston, we support the world’s largest medical complex—the Texas Medical Center—while operating 18 donor centers and hosting more than 7,000 mobile blood drives each year. As an FDA-accredited nonprofit, we provide high-quality human cellular material for both scientific and therapeutic use.

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EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER STATEMENT

Gulf Coast Blood is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants for positions are considered without regard to race/ethnicity, color, religion, national origin, age, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, military status, protected veteran status, disability status, genetic testing results, or any other basis or characteristic prohibited by applicable law, statute, regulation or Executive Order.