Health Technician - Ambulatory Care

Health Technician - Ambulatory Care

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Gainesville, Florida

Salary Range: $44959 - $52426 Per Year

Job Summary: The Health Technician works as a member of all the Critical Care and Ambulatory Care Units: Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU), Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU), Medical Surgical Step-Down Unit (MSSDU), 4-North/ICU, Emergency Department (ED) at North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System (NF/SGVHS).

Major Duties:

• The Health Technician duties include: Answering and directing phone calls. Responsible for the immediate maintenance and cleanliness of reusable medical equipment (RME) used in the care of the patient and will be certified on the specific equipment. Assists the RN in transporting patients to Critical Care area (MSSDU, MICU, SICU, and 4-North ICU) and transports patients requiring Telemetry monitoring with signed competencies. Responsible for restocking patient units and preparing the area to receive admissions. Restocks and checks crash carts and airway boxes. Assists the RN in post-mortem care. Assumes a collaborative role in mobility of patients by completing rounds on all patients and establishing a mobility plan with the nurse early in their shift. Assists patients to in turning maintaining proper body alignment, giving ROM exercises, getting up to the chair or to ambulate in collaboration with the nurse to foster mobility and prevent complications. Recognizes and provides maximal physical safety and emotional security for the patient by taking appropriate action, discussion with the nurse and adding information to the patient's nursing care plan. Recognizes the need for and uses rehabilitation techniques in motivating severely disabled, disturbed, and disfigured patients in doing the most they can to return to health and live with their disability. Motivates self-sufficiency in older, apathetic, not active, partially dependent patients. Assists the RN to plan for continuing nursing care and follow-up after hospitalization. Cares for patients presenting atypical problems resulting from senility, lack of muscular coordination, and disabilities with aging. Serves as a unit resource for equipment when appropriate and has received adequate training to serve as a unit expert. Tracks equipment malfunctions and repair returns, works with Biomedical and Engineering departments to facilitate. Responsible for maintaining orderly work areas within the unit without being specifically directed. Interprets hospital routines and procedures for patients and their visitors. Perform phlebotomy/specimen collection and transports specimen. Recognizes emergencies and responds appropriately by seeking and providing assistance. Assist the patient to deep breath and cough. Removes patient in the Step-Down unit from telemetry with follow-up calls to wards after instructions from RN. Observes, reports, and records pertinent observations and psychological reactions of patients to treatments which are significant in assisting the health care team to interpret progress and plan for the patient's management. Anticipates and recognizes the patient's psychological response to illness from onset to recovery, or death, and uses opportunities to interact in a therapeutic manner. The work involves sitting, walking, standing, pushing, pulling, bending, and heavy lifting (35 pounds and over). This requires the knowledge and expertise in using assistive devices such as the beds, ceiling lifts, walkers, slide boards and rollators, and in using proper body mechanics. The work is performed in one of the ICUs or the Medical-Surgical Step Down. The incumbent wears prescribed protective devices when in contact with contagious diseases. ID patients with contaminated drainage. Safe work habits are practiced. *When providing patient care, the employee will consider the age of the patient and the impact his/her age has on their ability to understand directions and to provide input into their own care. Preferred Experience: 1 year experience as an Nursing Assistant or Healthcare Technician. 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, 12-hour days/12 hour nights with weekend rotation, full-time Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Health Technician - Ambulatory Care/PD01804A 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, 01/09/2026. You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: Applicants must meet the Individual Occupation Requirement and Specialized Experience/Education. Each of these items are separate requirements. Individual Occupational Requirement (IOR) for Health Aid and Technician Series (0640): Positions in this series range widely in type and include support duties to medical or health personnel such as audiologists, speech pathologists, medical officers, and optometrists. Therefore, technician experience is experience that required application of the knowledge, methods, and techniques of the position to be filled. In addition to the IOR, candidates must also meet one of the following requirements: Specialized Experience: Applicants must have 1 year of specialized experience equivalent to at least GS-5 that equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA's) to perform successfully the duties of the position, and that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled to be eligible for the GS-6 level. To be creditable, specialized experience must have been equivalent to at least the next lower grade level. Applicants who have the 1 year of appropriate specialized experience, as indicated in the table, are not required by this standard to have general experience, education above the high school level, or any additional specialized experience to meet the minimum qualification requirements. OR, Education: Six (6) months of graduate education related to the position being filled. OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and education beyond 4-year course of study above high school leading to a bachelor's degree with courses related to the occupation. NOTE: Graduate education or an internship meets the specialized experience required above GS-5 only in those instances where it is directly related to the work of the position. One full year of graduate education meets the requirements for GS-7. Two full years of graduate education or a master's degree meets the requirements for GS-9. One year of full-time graduate education is considered to be the number of credit hours that the school attended has determined to represent 1 year of full-time study. If that information cannot be obtained from the school, 18 semester hours should be considered as satisfying the 1 year of full-time study requirement. Part-time graduate education is creditable in accordance with its relationship to a year of full-time study at the school attended. OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have a combination of specialized experience and graduate education or beyond. 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/. OPM Qual standard for 0640, See the NOTE under the Education section.

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/12854902. 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, 01/09/2026. 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. 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: 2026-01-09