Health System Specialist (Quality and Patient Safety)

Health System Specialist (Quality and Patient Safety)

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Nashville, Tennessee

Salary Range: $61722 - $97087 Per Year

Job Summary: The incumbent serves as the Health Systems Specialist (HSS) to the Health System Director and is responsible for the administrative and operational functions in support of the Director and subordinate services. In partnership with service managers, the incumbent is responsible for the overall daily operation and long-term management of the unit and for assuring the service supports the demands of a quality health care environment.

Major Duties:

• The major duties of this position include but are not limited to the following: Provides consultation, direction, and leadership for professional, technical, administrative, and clerical employees, particularly regarding governance related issues and agency issue briefs. Oversees the management of all TVHS governance-related documentation to include policies, charters, and minutes ensuring files are properly protected and readily available when needed. Develops tools required to collect and evaluate data and information into reports, tables, charts and graphs, reviews subject matter, and provides a concise analysis to leadership, particularly regarding governance related issues and agency issue briefs. Provides full and thorough review, analysis, and evaluation of governance related programmatic activities and development. Works to establish and implement the primary goals and support the mission of TVHS, setting the direction, and overlay for governance related issues. Provides insight in a variety of operational and management issues and integrates this understanding into the development and implementation of governance programs. Establishes, in concert with leadership and key support staff, both long- term and short-term governance related plans, policies and procedures, assuring that administrative and clinical programs are integrated in order to provide high quality patient care with optimal resource utilization. Serves as the facility subject matter expert and manager of facility level policy creation, modifications, maintenance, storage, and distribution. Ensures local policies adhere to higher level policy guidance and appropriately support accreditation readiness and external oversight regulations. Serves as the technical advisor and consultant to all levels of TVHS leadership on governance issues such as committee structure, requirements, membership, documentation, responsibilities, and oversight. By thoroughly reviewing all applicable higher level agency, local facility, and external oversight guidance, ensures that all committees are properly chartered, organized, and managed. Promotion Potential: The selectee may be promoted to the full performance level without further competition when all regulatory, qualification, and performance requirements are met. Selection at a lower grade level does not guarantee promotion to the full performance level. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday | 7:30 AM- 4:00 PM CST Telework: Ad Hoc Available Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Health System Specialist (Quality and Patient Safety)/PD70516A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 01/19/2026. 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-9 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-7. The grade may have been in any occupation but must have been held in the Federal service. For a GS-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-9. 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. Examples of appropriate SF-50s include: Within grade increases at the highest grade held; or Promotions with an effective date more than one year old; or SF-50s at the highest grade held with an effective date more than one year old. In addition to the Time-in-Grade Requirement above, applicants must also possess the Individual Occupational Requirement as described below. INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT: 1. 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 Government-wide, agency, and facility systems and requirements in various administrative areas such as budget, personnel, and procurement. OR 2. Education: Undergraduate or graduate education with a major study in hospital administration, public health administration, or related fields such as business or public administration with course work in health care administration. (TRANSCRIPT MUST BE PROVIDED.) 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. In addition to the Time-in-Grade Requirement and Individual Occupational Requirement, applicants must also possess the Specialized Experience, Education, and/or Combination as described below. NOTE: CANDIDATES USING EDUCATION TO MEET THE INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT MUST SUBMIT AN UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF CONFERRED DEGREE BY THE ANNOUNCEMENT CLOSING. LATE SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. To qualify for this position at the GS-09 level, you must meet one of the following: SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: You must have at least one (1) full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level (GS-7) 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 is defined as: Forecasting financial needs, preparing budget requests, tracking expenditures, and procuring supplies and equipment. Performing all section contracting officer representative (COR) functions to include contract establishment, surveillance, and evaluation to ensure all contract requirements are met and resolving discrepancies with the contractor and contracting officer to ensure the government and operational needs are met. Managing all section records to include meeting minutes, personnel records, financial records, contract records, and others per the record control schedule and other applicable guidance. Providing oversight and coordination of all official TVHS policy memoranda to include training, reviewing, tracking, distribution, providing notifications, and ensuring compliance with accrediting and reviewing organizations and national policy. Ensuring inquiries, correspondence, and actions for area of responsibility are addressed appropriately. Demonstrating experience and ability to process and analyze data; presenting the data for use by decision makers and other stakeholders. THE PREFERRED CANDIDATE WOULD POSSESS AND DEMONSTRATE THE FOLLOWING EXPERIENCE: - Lean/Six Sigma Process Improvement Belt Training and Certification - Quality and/or High Reliability Organization (HRO) Training & Experience - Government Financial, Contracting, & Human Resources Experience - Expert Knowledge of Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation, Formatting, and Executive Correspondence and Would Be Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite Applications. NOTE: Experience must be fully documented on your resume and must include job title, duties, month and year start/end dates, AND hours worked per week OR EDUCATION: Successfully completed a master's or equivalent graduate degree or 2 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.B. or J.D., if related. Education at the graduate level must have been obtained in an accredited college or university and must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. NOTE: Transcripts must be submitted with your application materials. Education cannot be credited without documentation. OR COMBINATION: Combinations of successfully completed graduate level education (beyond the first year) and specialized experience as described above, to meet the total experience requirements. The education portion must include graduate courses that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do to the work of this position. This education must have been obtained in an accredited college or university. NOTE: Transcripts must be submitted with your application materials. Education cannot be credited without documentation. Experience must be clearly indicated in your resume (QUALIFICATIONS CONTINUED UNDER EDUCATION SECTION OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT)

How to Apply: All applicants are encouraged to apply online. To apply for this position, you must complete the questionnaire and submit the documentation specified in the Required Documents section below. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on 01/19/2026 to receive consideration. To preview the questionnaire click https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12865360. 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 and complete the occupational questionnaire. Click Submit My Answers to submit your application package. NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. 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 https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/merit-hiring-plan-resources/applicant-guidance-on-the-two-page-resume-limit/ During the application process you may have an option to opt-in to make your resume available to hiring managers in the agency who have similar positions. Opting in does not impact your application for this announcement, nor does it guarantee further consideration for additional positions.

Application Deadline: 2026-01-19