Summary

The Health System Specialist is located at the Washington DC VA Medical Center and reports directly to the Associate Director of Operations, working with the Facility Planner. Serves as the key technical authority on space management, activation, and transition planning, exercising significant independence in planning, coordinating, and evaluating complex projects that directly affect the Medical Center's capacity to deliver patient care and meet strategic access, safety, and regulatory goals.

Duties

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Major duties include, but are not limited to the following:

• Leads the facility-wide program for large-scale moves and relocations
• Exercises delegated authority Contracting Officer Representative (COR) for move-related contracts, including developing scopes of work, monitoring contractor performance, resolving technical and logistical issues on site, validating invoices, and recommending corrective action.
• Functions as the facility's lead Activations Coordinator with program-level responsibility for planning, coordinating, and executing activation and deactivation activities for new, expanded, or repurposed clinical and administrative spaces.
• Serves as the principal technical advisor to the Facility Planner, Chief of FMS, and Executive Leadership on activation-related readiness, resource needs, and operational impacts, making recommendations that affect capital asset inventory, master planning, clinic configurations, and long-term space strategy.
• Leads transition planning for new and renovated buildings/spaces, including the development of detailed transition budgets, phased occupancy, backfill plans, and contingency strategies for maintaining service continuity during construction.
• Develops and maintains comprehensive room-by-room equipment and material listings, including costs, procurement lead times, and installation schedules, using advanced spreadsheet and database tools to support forecasting, budget formulation, and performance tracking.
• Designs and manages data collection, reporting, and analytical tools that support decision-making for space utilization, activation readiness, and move efficiency, using statistical and cost analysis techniques to identify trends, risks, and opportunities for improvement.

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday; 7:30AM EST - 4:00PM EST

Virtual: This is not a virtual position.

Position Description/PD#: Health System Specialist - Activations Coordinator/

Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized

Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved

Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

Requirements

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Conditions of employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job
• To be considered for this position, you must complete all required steps in the process. In addition to the application and questionnaire, this position requires an online assessment. The online assessment measures critical general competencies required to perform the job.
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• Subject to background/security investigation
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued identification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment.
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP)

As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary period or 2-year trial period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider:

• your performance and conduct;
• the needs and interests of the agency;
• whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and
• whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service.

Upon completion of your probationary period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 06/30/2026.

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-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-09. 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.

You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below:

• INDIVIDUAL OCCUPATIONAL REQUIREMENT: Undergraduate and Graduate Education: Major study hospital administration, public health administration, or related fields such as business or public administration with course work in health care administration.

OR

• Specialized Experience: (for positions above GS-5): 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.

OR,

• 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 Individual Occupational Requirement and Time-in-Grade requirement, applicants must have the specialized experience as described below:

GS-11 SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-09 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: experience leading complex space activation, transition, and large-scale move projects in a hospital or healthcare system, with a strong command of clinical workflows.

Preferred Experience: Highly qualified applicants will demonstrate that they have experience planning and sequencing multi-phase moves, functioning as a COR (Contracting Officers Representative) or equivalent for move/activation contracts, and developing data-driven tools, dashboards, and analyses to monitor readiness, space utilization, risks, and performance. They will also excel at high-level communication and stakeholder management, regularly briefing senior leadership, facilitating interdisciplinary workgroups, negotiating among services with competing priorities, and translating complex analytical findings into clear, actionable recommendations that protect patient safety and minimize operational disruption during major transitions.

You will be rated based on the following Best Qualified Criteria (ensure your resume reflects the following):

• Experience leading or coordinating large, multi-phased moves or relocations in hospitals or health systems, integrating requirements from engineering, IT, logistics, and clinical services.
• Direct experience planning and executing activation/deactivation of new or renovated clinical and administrative spaces, including frameworks, timelines, and governance for activation workgroups.
• Experience developing transition plans, FFE (Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment) inventories and budgets, and sequencing ordering, staging, installation, and acceptance aligned with construction schedules.
• Familiarity with Joint Commission, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), life safety, building and fire codes, and VA or similar healthcare design and construction criteria applied to space and move decisions.
• Use of spreadsheets, databases, dashboards, or other tools to track move/activation status, analyze space utilization, and produce reports or visualizations for leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to use statistical, cost, or performance analysis to evaluate activation readiness, move performance, and space utilization, and to recommend improvements.
• Experience facilitating interdisciplinary teams, resolving conflicts among stakeholders, and negotiating solutions that balance clinical priorities, safety, budget, and access.
• Record of preparing and delivering high-quality briefings, reports, and decision papers on activation/move or planning topics to executive leadership or external bodies.
• Evidence of independently planning, sequencing, and adjusting complex project activities and timelines across multiple services or partners, with minimal supervision.
• Understanding of inpatient, outpatient, surgical, diagnostic, and residential workflows used to design or adjust space, moves, or activation plans to support safe, efficient care.

Physical Requirements: Work is primarily sedentary, but may require some walking and lifting moderate weight.

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/.

Education

A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education.

Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/.