Health Technician (Telehealth Clinical) (Advanced)

This Health Technician (Telehealth Clinical) (Advanced) position is located within the Chief of Staff Service at the VA White River Junction Healthcare System located in White River Junction, Vermont.

The Health Technician (Telehealth Clinical) - Advanced provides high level support, training, and advanced management of telehealth operations and is typically stationed at a clinical care delivery site (VA Medical Center, CBOC, VA Outreach Clinic, etc.), with duties that may require travel. Primary responsibilities of the incumbent include delivering established telehealth competency-based training for clinicians and telehealth staff members. Supports clinical telehealth encounters for both the patient and provider locations by serving as the telepresenter within scope of practice, functioning as an imager and supporting clinical data for telehealth store and forward applications, managing real time clinical telehealth events, providing established patient education, and providing technical and administrative support of telehealth operations.

Duties include but are not limited to:

• Prepares the clinical environment, which may include preparing medical and telecommunications equipment to be used for clinical examination and treatment.
• Serves as a TelePresenter within scope of practice during clinical video telehealth (CVT) and VA Video Connect (VVC) encounters including tasks such as establishing and maintaining video conferencing connections, making introductions between patient site and provider site, following instructions of a clinician to facilitate an effective clinical encounter.
• Serves as an imager and clinical data manager for store and forward telehealth (SFT) clinical encounters including tasks such as capturing images, collecting data and transmitting them electronically for clinical review in accordance with VHA national guidelines.
• Coordinates and/or directly configures, installs, troubleshoots, inventory management, cleaning, and performs minor routine maintenance of assigned telehealth technology.
• Ensures assigned telehealth technologies are secured, ready for use, and accounted for by preparing and tracking maintenance work orders, information systems, inventory records, and communicates with National Telehealth Technology Help Desk to facilitate troubleshooting, repair, and coordination of replacement equipment as necessary.
• Provides education and training to Veterans, clinical staff and providers on the use of telehealth technologies and serves as a point of contact to answer questions and address concerns related to these technologies.
• Completes standardized clinical questionnaires and templates within scope of training and applicable guidelines.
• Ensures patient privacy is protected by complying with all information security and patient privacy regulations.
• Receives and schedules requests for simple and complex intra-facility, and interfacility telehealth appointments using an electronic resource-based scheduling system.
• Screens patients for Telehealth modality and referring patients that do not meet established criteria to appropriate care.
• Monitors and maintains schedules of rooms, patients, technologies, clinical providers and presenters as needed to ensure efficient telehealth operations.
• Communicates effectively with clinical and administrative staff at the assigned local site and those located at remote sites of care.
• Maintains knowledge of and skill in applying an extensive body of rules, procedures, and operations in telehealth-related technologies and a variety of computer hardware and software used for telecommunications, data entry and retrieval, record maintenance, document and report generation.
• Maintains regular contact with other staff members and the Facility Telehealth Coordinator to work out process issues, equipment needs, problems, data collection and any other logistical issues.
• Performs additional duties as assigned.

Work Schedule: Full-Time, Monday - Friday, 8:00 am - 4:30 pm
Telework: Available, Ad-Hoc.
Virtual: This is not a virtual position.
Functional Statement #: FS08567 for GS-07.
Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized
Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized
Financial Disclosure Report: Not Required

Notifications:

• This position is in the Excepted Service.
• This position is a Bargaining Unit position.
• This position is covered by locality-based comparability pay.
• Veterans' preference does not apply for internal or other current permanent Federal agency employees.
• Narrative responses to the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) may be required from the selectee in order to proceed with the appointment.
• Current and former Federal employees must submit copies of their most recent SF-50, (Notice of Personnel Action). The SF-50 must identify the position title, series, grade, step, tenure and type of service (Competitive or Excepted). In some cases, more than one SF-50 may be required to show a higher grade previously held.

Basic Requirements:

• United States Citizenship: Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
• Experience and Education:
  • (1) Experience. One year of experience in a health care field that demonstrates the applicant's ability to perform the work or provides an understanding of the work such as but not limited to a medical or clinical assistant (or technician) or health technician. OR
  • (2) Education. Four academic years above high school leading to a bachelor's degree with courses related to the occupation. OR
  • (3) Experience/Education Combination. Equivalent combination of experience and education are qualifying for entry level for which both education and experience are acceptable. Examples are listed below:
    • (a) Six months of experience in the health care field and two years of education above high school that included at least six semester hours in health care related courses such as, biological science, surgical technician courses, nursing assistant or other courses related to the position; or an associate's degree in a health care related field; or
    • (b) Six months of experience in the health care field and successful completion of a course for health care technicians, hospital corpsmen, or medical service specialists given by the U.S. Armed Forces.
• English Language Proficiency. A candidate will not be appointed under authority of 38 U.S.C. chapters 73 or 74, to serve in a direct patient-care capacity in VHA who is not proficient in written and spoken English.

Grade Determinations: GS-7 Health Technician (Telehealth Clinical) (Advanced): In addition to the basic requirements, the following criteria must be met:

Experience. One year of experience equivalent to the next lower grade level, GS-6.

AND

Demonstrated Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities. In addition to the experience above, the candidate must demonstrate all of the following KSAs.

• Ability to use independent technical judgment to analyze, evaluate and resolve problems.
• Knowledge of quality control and assurance procedures and principles of performance improvement.
• Ability to function effectively between competing priorities.
• Knowledge of proper maintenance and troubleshooting of telehealth equipment.
• Ability to work with a team to provide technical guidance, plan, organize and coordinate activities of a health technician in order to effectively complete job duties of assignment such as distributing workload, monitoring the status and progress of work, monitoring accuracy of work.
• Ability to assist in Health Technician (Telehealth Clinical) development, outcome management and strategic planning.
• Ability to perform successful knowledge transfer regarding the use of telehealth technologies.

Assignment. At the Advanced Health Technician (Telehealth Clinical) level, the incumbent will monitor and capture workload credit, develop reporting procedures and participate in performance improvement activities aimed at improving patient care access and Telehealth processes. This would include; sampling techniques, taking measurements at various points in the telehealth process; and develop and provide reporting procedures that identifies and analyzes inherent weaknesses in work and telehealth procedures. The incumbent will coordinate and work with Biomed and IT staff for the installation and upgrade of hardware and software for all telehealth technologies; will be responsible for advanced telehealth technical support to patients, staff and providers; provides technical consultation and support for staff and patients via phone, web chat, social media and face to face sessions; provides instruction, training and resources on the use of advanced telehealth technologies to patients, staff and providers alike for the delivery of care using telehealth technologies. For all assignments above the full performance level, the higher level duties must consist of significant scope, complexity (difficulty) and range of variety and be performed by the incumbent at least 25% of the time.

Preferred Experience:

• Experience as a Telehealth Clinical Technician, at least 2 years of experience.
• Microsoft and excel experience preferred.
• Familiarity with ordering of Telehealth Systems, Education for iPad and technology, TMP scheduling Key.
• Required travel to cover Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs).
• Telehealth Service Agreement assistance, Telehealth note title and template knowledge.
• Clinical knowledge and experience assisting other Telehealth Clinical Technicians.

Reference: For more information on this qualification standard, please visit https://www.va.gov/ohrm/QualificationStandards/.

The full performance level of this vacancy is GS-07. The actual grade at which an applicant may be selected for this vacancy is GS-07.

Physical Requirements: See VA Directive and Handbook 5019.

IMPORTANT: 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/.

• You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job.
• All applicants tentatively selected for VA employment in a testing designated position are subject to urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use prior to appointment. Applicants who refuse to be tested will be denied employment with VA.
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959.
• Must be proficient in written and spoken English.
• 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.
• Must pass pre-employment physical examination.
• Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP).
• Complete all application requirements detailed in the "Required Documents" section of this announcement.

As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1 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 trial period, your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.