Program Manager (Pharmacy Solutions)

About Us

The Department of Health and Wellness offers opportunities to grow and advance in a dynamic sector that touches the lives of all Nova Scotians.  Along with our partners, including the Nova Scotia Health Authority and the IWK Health Centre, we’re committed to continually improving our health care system. 

With a focus on collaborative primary health care, continuing care, improved supports for mental health and addictions, digital health, capital infrastructure, and more, the department is thinking differently about how to plan, fund, legislate and monitor to improve access and service delivery. To do this, we need leaders at all levels of the organization who embrace a challenge and believe in their ability to make a difference.

About Our Opportunity

The Program Manager, Pharmacy Solutions provides leadership for Nova Scotia’s Pharmacy Solutions portfolio, including the provincial Drug Information System (DIS) and related digital health initiatives. This role offers an opportunity to support the continued evolution of pharmacy-related digital health services that improve medication management, strengthen provider workflows, and advance health system priorities.

Reporting to the Director, Digital Health Solutions, you will lead a team responsible for the operation, sustainment, improvement, and modernization of pharmacy solutions across the province. You will set direction for the portfolio, guide priorities, support good governance, and work with partners to ensure services remain reliable, user-focused, and aligned with health system needs.

As the departmental lead for Pharmacy Solutions, you will bring a strong understanding of pharmacy practice, medication management, and digital health service delivery to support sound decisions, strong relationships, effective risk management, and continuous improvement.

Primary Accountabilities

• Provide leadership for the Pharmacy Solutions portfolio, including DIS and related digital health initiatives.
• Set portfolio direction, priorities, and governance expectations in alignment with departmental and health system priorities.
• Oversee service planning, modernization, and continuous improvement to support reliable, user-focused digital health services.
• Lead, coach, and support a team of professionals to deliver program objectives and high-quality service.
• Build effective relationships with partners across government, health system organizations, professional groups, healthcare providers, and vendors.
• Communicate clearly with senior leaders and partners to support shared understanding, alignment, and decision-making.
• Use evidence, user feedback, and program data to guide priorities and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Identify, manage, and escalate key risks related to patient safety, service delivery, privacy, security, timelines, budget, and benefits realization.
• Manage vendor relationships, contracts, financial resources, procurement activities, and related approvals for the portfolio.
  
  

Qualifications and Experience

You have a degree in a relevant discipline such as Pharmacy, Health Informatics, or a related field, plus significant relevant experience. An equivalent combination of training, education, and experience will be considered.

You have experience leading healthcare programs, services, teams, or digital health initiatives and can demonstrate:

• Leadership experience in healthcare, digital health, service delivery, or program management.
• Experience leading teams, setting priorities, and supporting staff development.
• Strong communication, relationship-building, and influencing skills with internal and external partners.
• Experience with planning, governance, service improvement, budgets, contracts, procurement, or vendor management.
• Experience leading change and navigating complexity in a public sector, health system, or multi-partner environment.
• Understanding of risk management, privacy, security, continuous improvement, and benefits evaluation.
  
  

Please include a cover letter of no more than one page that demonstrates your experience with the qualifications above. If you don’t meet every qualification, please explain your transferable skills that would make you a good fit for the role.

Experience with pharmacy practice, medication management, digital health, or health information systems is important to this role.

Experience with related systems, such as One Person One Record (OPOR), electronic medical records (EMRs), public health information systems (Panorama, CanImmunize), clinical repositories (SHARE, OPOR Provider Portal), health information exchanges, registries, or provincial reporting/data platforms, would be considered an asset. Familiarity or experience with health information standards, clinical terminology, interoperability, software development, data quality, analytics, or system integration would also be valuable.

We will assess the above qualifications and experience using tools such as assessments, presentations, interviews, reference checks, etc. 

Equivalency

An equivalent combination of training, education and experience will be considered. Applicants relying on education and experience equivalencies must demonstrate such equivalencies in their application.

Benefits

Based on the employment status, the Government of Nova Scotia offers its employees a wide range of benefits such as a Defined Benefit Pension Plan, Health, Dental, Life Insurance, General illness, Short and Long Term Disability, Vacation and Employee and Family Assistance Programs.  For information on all our Benefit program offerings, click here: Benefits for government employees.

Working Conditions

This role operates in a dynamic, fast-paced environment with competing priorities and complex challenges. The position is primarily office-based, with occasional travel and site visits as required. 

What We Offer

• Career development where you have access to career guidance, tools, resources, and ongoing training for every stage of your career 
• Engaging workplace: our employees feel valued, respected, connected, and tuned in, we have forward-thinking policies and strategies 
• Countless career paths 
• A dynamic, client-focused office environment where service excellence and teamwork are our focus.