Clarification from the agency

Current Veterans Affairs employees serving under Career/Career Conditional or Excepted Service appointments (i.e. Canteen, Hybrid, Title 38, etc. and meets interchange agreement requirements). This does not include temporary, term or temporary intermittent. And CTAP Eligibles

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The duties of this position include but are not limited to the following:

• Participates in and facilitates transformative quality, safety, effectiveness, and efficiency improvement efforts.
• Acts as the project lead for healthcare and operational improvements projects impacting patient care delivery systems and functions throughout the medical center.
• Facilitates, coaches, and trains audiences at all levels of the organizations throughout the lifestyle of performance improvement project.
• Identifies systems designs problems that contribute to human errors. Identifies and processes based on Lea/System Redesign/Systems Engineering principles to mitigate these types errors.
• Provides instruction to others on Lean, Lean Six Sigma, System Redesign or other improvement methodologies principles and tools through formal classroom instruction or small group mentoring.
• Defines a project scope and goals through a collaborative process with subject matter experts and leadership at the facility, service line or program, or unit level.
• Leads project teams through designed brainstorming sessions to develop solutions towards a specific deliverable or goal during a project.
• Directs the team toward sustainable solutions that are mistake proof. Mistake proofing is designing processes that cannot be performed in error and thus improve the product experience for customers.
• Responsible for leading the team through development of control strategies, to ensure project solutions are sustained after the project lifestyle.
• Develops control plans, communication plans, risk management plans, and through closeout of the project.
• Conducts extensive work in analyzing data and conducting background research on the issue.
• Provides consultation to executive, service line, and program leadership by leveraging VA data analytics resources.
• Pulls, isolates, and manipulates data to identify root cause of a performance issue. Develops statistical models to measures successful of performance improvement action.
• Develops statistical, graphical, and narrative reports, and communicates these studies to medical center executive leadership, service chiefs, supervisors, and other staff.

Work Schedule: Monday through Friday 7:00am to 3:30pm
Telework: Ad-hoc
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Position Description/PD#: Health System Specialist/PDS0012A
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized
Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• Subject to background/security investigation
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued dentification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment.
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP)

As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary period or 2-year trial period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider:

• your performance and conduct;
• the needs and interests of the agency;
• whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and
• whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service.

Upon completion of your probationary period or trial period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 05/14/2026.

Individual Occupational Requirement (IOR): The 0671 series requires specific education or experience to be met in order to be appointed into a position of this series. You must meet one of the pre-determined Education or Experience Individual Occupational Requirements listed below as set by Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

1. Undergraduate and Graduate Education in a Major study of hospital administration, public health administration, or related fields such as business or public administration with course work in health care administration. OR
2. Specialized Experience: Progressively responsible analytical or administrative, or clinical management or supervisory experience in the health care field. This work may have been performed in an operating health care facility or a higher organizational echelon with advisory or directional authority over such facilities. Work must have involved a close working relationship with facility managers and analysis and/or coordination of administrative, clinical, or other service activities, and provided knowledge of the following:
   • Missions, organizations, programs, and requirements of health care delivery systems;
   • Regulations and standards of various regulatory and credentialing groups; and
   • Government-wide, agency, and facility systems and requirements in various administrative areas such as budget, personnel, and procurement

You may qualify based on your specialized experience as described below:

Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-12 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-11. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade.

Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-11 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of creditable specialized experience includes but is not limited to:

• Participates in and facilitates transformative quality, safety, effectiveness, and efficiency improvement efforts.
• Facilitates, coaches, and train audiences at all levels of the organizations throughout the lifecycle of the performance improvement project.
• Conducts extensive work in analyzing data and conducting background research on the issue.
• Aligns identified metrics to known organizational priorities such as VA/VHA/VISN/Facility strategic or operational plans.
• Develops benchmarks, and assigns a schedule or priority level to a potential projects based on the need of the organization and direct consultation with executive leadership.

Preferred Experience:

• Preferred experience in facility level process improvements utilizing systems redesign principles such as Lean and Six Sigma, and quality improvement principles and concepts.

You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position:

• Analytical Thinking
• Organizational Performance Improvement
• Project Management

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment.

Physical Requirements: Work is primarily sedentary but some slight physical effort might be required.

For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE.

Narrative responses are not required at this time. If you are referred for consideration, you may be asked to submit additional job related information, which may include, but not limited to; responses to the knowledge, skills and abilities; completion of a work sample, and/or contact for an interview. Your resume and/or supporting documentation will be verified. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating or consideration for employment.

The Department of Veterans Affairs performs pre-employment reference checks as an assessment method used in the hiring process to verify information provided by a candidate (e.g., on resume or during interview or hiring process); gain additional knowledge regarding a candidate's abilities; and assist a hiring manager with making a final selection for a position.

For more information on the "Who may apply" eligibility requirements, please refer to the OHRM Status Candidates and Other Candidate Definitions document.

Placement Policy: The posting of this announcement does not obligate management to fill a vacancy or vacancies by promotion. The position may be filled by reassignment, change to lower grade, transfer, appointment, or reinstatement. Management may use any one or any combination of these methods to fill the position.

It is the policy of the VA to not deny employment to those that have faced financial hardships or periods of unemployment.

Veterans and Transitioning Service Members: Please visit the VA for Vets site for career-search tools for Veterans seeking employment at VA, career development services for our existing Veterans, and coaching and reintegration support for military service members.