Health System Specialist

Summary

The employee will serve as the Health Systems Specialist, located in the National Care & Peer Support Department of the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL), Veterans Affair (VA). The VCL is a 24-hour, 7-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year service aimed at connecting callers worldwide to a caring, qualified Veterans Administration employee. The VCL's mission is to provide 24/7, world-class suicide prevention and crisis intervention services to Veterans, Service Members and their family members.

Duties

Major duties include but are not limited to: Facilitates seamless integration into, and ongoing collaboration with, the established VCL system of care. Collaborates with agencies within and outside VA, and across VCL programs/departments, to ensure program content and practices remain current, compliant with VHA/VCL and external regulatory standards, and consistent with service fidelity. Provides expert-level consultation across all areas of program development and continuous improvement - including policy, SOPs, training curriculum, service delivery, program evaluation, and recruitment/hiring - by integrating program evaluation data and synthesizing information from multiple sources to inform decisions and extend or develop new techniques. Collaborates with external leaders in research and practice to create, execute, and evaluate innovative practices, maintaining up-to-date knowledge of evidence-based and innovative practice to advance the field. Develops and delivers communications and information-dissemination tools (presentations, job aids, other materials) to educate and spread information about services at all VCL levels, applying strong command of English grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Provides expert-level consultation and coaching to team members and plans specific training, program evaluation, and quality assurance programming consistent with VCL regulations, to ensure excellence and consistency in supervision quality and overarching practice. Collaborates with researchers and program evaluators to move forward work products on behalf of VCL. Collaborates with leadership and external leaders in the field of research and practice to create, execute, and evaluate innovative practices to advance the field of services, while maintaining gold standard Veteran safety practices. Work Schedule: Monday-Friday, 8:00 am-4:30pm EST. Tour is subject to change based on program needs Compressed/Flexible Work Schedule: Not available. Remote: This is remote position. Selectees will work 100% of the time in a non-VA-owned space outside of the local commuting area of a parent station. The employee's workspace must be suitable for conducting business and as such, remote employees are expected to provide a secure, distraction-free home-based worksite with reliable high speed internet connectivity. The employee will be required to travel to the closest VA Medical Center or VA Outpatient Clinic for issuance of equipment, and as needed for technical support. Selectees will be required to self-certify that their remote workplace meets all safety, privacy, and internet speed requirements. Position Description/PD#: Health System Specialist/PD35205A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not required Financial Disclosure Report: Not required This is not a bargaining unit position

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 11/09/2026. Time-In-Grade Requirement: In addition to the Basic Requirements, 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. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. Individual Occupational Requirement (IOR): The Health System Administration Series, 0671, has an Individual Occupational Requirement. Applicants must meet at least one of the requirements below. Undergraduate and Graduation Education: Major study - Hospital Administration, Public Health Administration, or related fields such as Business or Public Administration with course work in Health Care Administration. A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education. 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. Special Provision for Inservice Placement: Successful completion of an agency-sponsored on-the-job training program may be substituted for qualifying experience, provided it included a formal individualized training plan. Such a training program must have been conducted in an operating health care system and included: Assignments providing a knowledge of basic health system administration philosophies, practices, and procedures, and basic government administrative policies and requirements; Practical assignments providing an opportunity to apply health system administration skills and principles (as the individual progresses, work assignments must be characteristic of the grade level to which he or she is assigned); and Oversight by an experienced health system administrator with periodic evaluation of the individual's progress and appropriate adjustment of the training program. GS-12 Qualification Requirement: In addition to Time in Grade and the IOR, applicants must meet the following to qualify for this position: 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. In order to meet the minimum qualifications for this position, you must meet 3/5 of the following examples of specialized experience: Delivered health care, behavioral health, crisis or psychosocial services directly to Veterans, or to a comparable population with complex needs.; Developed, wrote, or revised behavioral health, crisis-response, or suicide-prevention policies, standard operating procedures (SOP), quality-assurance standards, reports, or program documentation.; Planned, developed or delivered training, and coached or consulted with staff or supervisors to improve consistency and quality of practice.; Evaluated a health care program using data or other measures of effectiveness and efficiency.; Worked with leaders, other departments or outside agencies to keep program practices in line with behavioral health, crisis or psychosocial VA direc