Health Technician

Health Technician

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Richland, Washington

Salary Range: $40332 - $58445 Per Year

Job Summary: The incumbent serves as a Health Technician in Diagnostics Services at the Jonathan M. Wainwright VA Medical Center and other Community Based Outpatient Clinics as needed. The Health Technician serves in a multi-faceted capacity to provide medical and administrative support to promote timely and efficient patient care within the Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Service (P&LMS).

Major Duties:

• Duties include but are not limited to: Collect blood using a variety of phlebotomy techniques including vacutainer system, syringe, butterfly, and capillary finger sticks with a minimal number of failures, patient bruising, or required repeat collection. Collect laboratory specimens from urinalysis, chemistry, hematology, coagulation, or microbiology. Collect blood or urine specimens and ensures safe process to maintain specimen quality. Evaluate specimens to determine suitability for analysis. Perform moderate-complex testing waived procedures such as special chemistry, toxicology, hematology, coagulation, or urinalysis. Record and report diagnostic test results and perform additional testing to clarify or confirm abnormal patient results. Identify emergent situations and alert medical staff if conditions warrant immediate response. Take necessary actions to resolve any irregularities and practices by health care providers or Veterans that are not in compliance with Medical Center policy. Provide technical advice and assistance to clinicians, health care providers, and Veterans. Maintain and compile daily statistical data for submission of reports to local, regional, central, and national offices to be used for program administration. Perform other duties as assigned. 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, 7:30am - 4:00pm. Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Health Technician/PD80399A and PD80397A Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized. Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized. Physical Requirements: The work involves various physical demands requiring the employee to be versatile in the many functions performed. These include sedentary work performed at a desk with intermittent standing, walking, bending, lifting, stooping, and stretching. When transferring patients, providing patient care, the employee must practice good body mechanics to prevent injury to self and others. The demands may be unpredictable requiring the incumbent to adjust accordingly. Requires the ability to work under pressure, make sound decisions, and maintain composure in different situations if necessary. Work is performed at a fast pace. In many situations the duration of the activity (such as most of a workday) contributes to the arduous nature of the job. Position requires occasional lifting of reagent and supply containers weighing up to 20 pounds. Work Environment: Work is performed in inpatient, outpatient, intensive care, and extended care areas of the hospital. The areas are typically well lit, ventilated and air conditioned. Outside noise interference is reduced to a minimum. Work is performed within full view and hearing of patients and the public. There are moderate risks which require safety precautions: These may involve stress, verbal or physical abuse caused by disturbed or agitated patient or family. Employee is subject to exposure of communicable diseases. Contacts with patients give rise to significant chance of needle sticks. The use of protective equipment, such as, but not limited to, gloves and protective clothing is required. The technician is regularly exposed to bio-hazardous material encountered in a clinical laboratory. This includes daily exposure to potentially infectious patients or materials, and occasional exposure to hazardous chemicals. Incumbent works days, evening or weekend shifts as mission requires to provide quality patient care.

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement, 12/15/2025. Individual Occupational Requirement: An IOR is a basic requirement that must be met in order to qualify for the 0640 occupational series. Applicants must meet one of the following requirements: Specialized Experience: 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. OR Education and Training: For GS 5- Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree, with major study or at least 24 semester hours in subjects directly related to the position. In addition to the IOR, you may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: GS-5 Requirements: Specialized Experience: One year of specialized experience (equivalent to the GS-4grade level in the federal service); experience that equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA's) and other characteristics to perform successfully the duties of the position, and that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled, in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Specialized experience includes but is not limited to: Perform clinical support under direct supervision of the Clinical Staff; knowledge of medical terminology, especially laboratory test names and specimen requirements based on tests ordered; knowledge of human anatomy as it relates to phlebotomy and impact on laboratory testing; knowledge of impact of drawing above or below an IV, mastectomy or fistula site; and knowledge of vein selection for optimal results. OR, Education (Transcripts Required): Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have a bachelor's degree or four (4) years of education above the high school level with major study or at least 24 semester hours in subjects directly related to the position. This education must have been obtained in an accredited business or technical school, junior college, college or university for which high school graduation or the equivalent is the normal prerequisite. One year of full-time undergraduate study is defined as 30 semester hours, 45 quarter hours, or the equivalent in a college or university or at least 20 hours of classroom instruction per week for approximately 36 weeks in a business or technical school. OR, Combination (Transcripts Required): Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an equivalent combination of successfully completed post-high school education (beyond the second year) and specialized experience, as described above, which meet the total qualification requirements for this grade level. This education must have been obtained in an accredited business or technical school, junior college, college or university for which high school graduation or the equivalent is the normal prerequisite. To calculate, first identify the percentage of required education you have earned (when substituting, you cannot use the first 60 semester hours that you earned). Then identify the percentage of required experience you possess. Add the two percentages. The total percentage must equal at least 100 percent to qualify at the GS-5. GS-6 Requirements: Specialized Experience: One year of specialized experience (equivalent to the GS-05 grade level in the federal service); experience that equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA's) and other characteristics to perform successfully the duties of the position, and that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled, in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Specialized experience includes but is not limited to: Independently perform clinical duties; knowledge of medical terminology, especially laboratory test names and specimen requirements based on tests ordered; knowledge of human anatomy as it relates to phlebotomy and impact on laboratory testing; knowledge of impact of drawing above or below an IV, mastectomy or fistula site; and knowledge of vein selection for optimal results; extensive knowledge of principals of patient care and skill enough to perform complex patient care outlined in standard operating procedures and policies. OR, Education (Transcripts Required): Successfully completed of nine (9) semester hours of graduate education that is directly related to the duties of the position. Education is generally not applicable for positions with this required skillset. However, completion of nine (9) semester hours or more of Graduate education may be qualifying under certain circumstances as long as the education directly relates to the requirements of the position. Preferred Experience: Phlebotomy skills. Processing experience preferred. 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/12844835. 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, 12/15/2025. 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. If initial application submission is updated and resubmitted with a new resume the most current resume will be reviewed for consideration. 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

Application Deadline: 2025-12-15