The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is searching for a digital health adviser for its digital health team, an FDA spokesperson confirmed to Becker's Hospital Review via email.
The selected digital health adviser, also advertised on USAJobs.gov as an "interdisciplinary engineer," will join the digital health team at the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. The position marks the first in a set of hires the FDA plans to add to its digital health team, according to the spokesperson.
The digital health adviser will provide technical expertise and develop regulatory policy related to a range of digital health focus areas. The ideal candidates will be "talented, innovative, out-of-the-box thinkers with industrial experience" and demonstrate a comprehensive background in at least one of the following 11 focus areas, according to a LinkedIn post by FDA Associate Director for Digital Health Bakul Patel:
1. Software lifecycle management processes
2. Mobile medical apps
3. Medical device interoperability
4. Healthcare cybersecurity
5. Wireless technologies
6. Cloud-enabled software deployment
7. Machine learning and artificial intelligence
8. Big data
9. Advanced analytics
10. Digital health product development
11. Program management
The job search represents one of the agency's first steps in its digital health innovation action plan, in which officials pledged to grow the FDA's digital health workforce.
"Our goal is to build a cadre of experts with a deep understanding and experience with software development and its application to medical devices," according to the plan, released in June. "This new staff will work with reviewers, compliance officers and others within the FDA to improve the quality, predictability, consistency, timeliness and efficiency of decision making on individual products and firms."