Department of Veterans Affairs

Health System Specialist

Portland, Oregon Full time

Health System Specialist

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Portland, Oregon

Salary Range: $96443 - $125378 Per Year

Job Summary: The position will support VA Research and Development (R&D) Service at the VA Portland Health Care System (VAPORHCS). The position will be responsible for providing oversight in support of all research activities at VAPORHCS at all stages of development. VAPORHCS hosts significant activities in many research program areas to include Rehabilitation, Clinical Science, Biomedical Laboratory, Health Sciences as well as the Center for Clinical Trials Research.

Major Duties:

  • Duties include but not limited to: The position will work with all VAPORHCS principal investigators and research stakeholders to develop plans for adequately staff, evaluate research progress relative to staffing levels, monitor funding levels for staffing, and transition personnel following completion of specific research projects and other related translational and operational activities. The position will review complex multi-year financial, regulatory, and organizational reports and applies standard analytical techniques and evaluated workflow to determine potential problem areas to develop recommendations to propose and implement corrective actions in those areas to improve coordination between organizations at local, regional, and national organizations. The position will participate with research and clinical colleagues in the immediate organization in formulating and administering plans and policies designed to meet R&D program objectives. The work involves isolating and defining unknown conditions, resolving critical problems, or developing new theories, major aspects of scientific programs or missions, and portions of broader programs and initiatives impacting research strategy. The position serves as an expert on VA regulations, rules, procedures, and practices for initiating, preparing, and monitoring procurement, and contractual agreements. Serve as a COR designee for the service and oversees areas of acquisition administration and contractor's performance, as it pertains to R&D. Responsibilities include ongoing contacts with researchers to disseminate all materials including R&I, IRB, etc., problems solve any difficulties with subject recruitment, data collection or entry issues and general project procedures. Performs budget work for the R&D Service in support of one or more of the phases or systems involved in budget administration including the formulation, presentation, or execution of a budget. Performs studies and audits on control and use of funds throughout each fiscal year. Provides regular and accurate budgetary information, commitments, and projections in a variety of forms and reports including ORD reports and project budget reports. Prepares a variety of management reports related to the status of funds, expenses, obligations, FTEs, and workload, adjusting to ensure accurate portrayal of status of funds. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00am - 4:30pm, PST Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Health System Specialist/PD737030 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet specialized experience requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 05/04/2026. 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). 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 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: For GS-12: Specialized Experience: You must have at least one (1) full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level (GS-11) in the Federal Service, that is directly related to the work of the position and has equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties as a Health System Specialist. Qualifying specialized experience would typically include but not limited to the following: assisting investigators in completing application for studies and grants; analyzing various action documentation and communications regarding studies, conducting preliminary reviews to determine scope of work and proposals and recommending document preparation and review; formulating and administering plans and policies designed to meet program objectives; recognizing opportunities for improvement and offer solutions using management principles and techniques, leading to changes in existing methods, techniques, processes, or practice; providing regular and accurate budgetary information, commitments, and projections in a variety of forms and reports; conducting a systematic and objective inquiry; including study design, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; and the reporting of results; developing, scheduling, coordinating, monitoring, evaluating, and managing projects and resources, including technical performance; preparing, justifying, reporting on, and executing the budget; and the relationships among program, budget, accounting, and reporting systems; and overseeing of acquisition and contracts. Preferred Experience: One or more years of experience with federal regulations, rules, procedures, and practices for initiating, preparing, and monitoring accounts, procurement, and contractual agreements. Experience with reviewing projects accounts, grants, budgets, and contract requests for a national-level research program within a healthcare organization. Experience working as a contracting official representative for the Service and oversees areas of acquisition and contractor performance. 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. 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 to Apply: Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply for this position, you must complete the initial online application, to include the initial online questionnaire and submission of the required documentation specified in the How to Apply and Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. To preview the application questionnaire, click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12945389. The application process is as follows: To begin, click Apply Online to create a USA JOBS account or log in to your existing account. Follow the prompts to select your USA JOBS resume and/or other supporting documents. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date, 05/04/2026. If you are required to complete any USA Hire Assessments, you will be notified after submitting your application. The notification will be provided in your application submission screen and via email. The notification will include your unique assessment access link to the USA Hire system and the completion deadline. Additionally, in USAJOBS you can click "Track this application" to return to your assessment completion notice. Access USA Hire using your unique assessment link. Access is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Review all instructions prior to beginning your assessments. You will have the opportunity to request a testing accommodation before beginning the assessments should you have a disability covered under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended. Set aside at least 3 hours to take the USA Hire Assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue later, you can re-use your unique assessment link. NOTE: Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us. To update your application, including supporting documentation: During the announcement open period, return to your USAJOBS account, find your application record, and click Edit my application. This option will no longer be available once the announcement has closed. To view the announcement status or your application status: https://help.usajobs.gov/how-to. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status, and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application. Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit.

Application Deadline: 2026-05-04