HEALTH TECH (TELEHEALTH CLINIC)

Full Job Description

This Health Technician (Telehealth Clinical)-Advanced position is in Connected Care services at the VA Maine Healthcare Systems, located at the Bangor Maine location.

Applicants pending the completion of educational or certification/licensure requirements may be referred and tentatively selected but may not be hired until all requirements are met.

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.

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. See chapter 2, section D, paragraph 5a, this part.

Experience and Education: Transcripts must be provided at the time of application.

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, Education: Four academic years above high school leading to a bachelor's degree with courses related to the occupation.

OR, 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 healthcare technicians, hospital corpsmen, or medical service specialists given by the U.S.

Armed Forces.

May qualify based on being covered by the Grandfathering Provision as described in the VA Qualification Standard for this occupation (only applicable to current VHA employees who are in this occupation and meet the criteria).

Grade Determinations: GS-07 Health Technician (Telehealth Clinical)-(Advanced) Experience: One year of experience equivalent to the next lower grade level, GS-06.

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

(a) Ability to use independent technical judgment to analyze, evaluate and resolve problems. (b) Knowledge of quality control and assurance procedures and principles of performance improvement.

(c) Ability to function effectively between competing priorities. (d) Knowledge of proper inventory management, maintenance and troubleshooting of telehealth equipment.

(e) 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.

(f) Ability to assist in Health Technician (Telehealth Clinical) development, outcome management and strategic planning.

(g) 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 6 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 with VA Video Connect, Clinical Video Telehealth, Store & Forward, CPRS, Scheduling.

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-7.

The actual grade at which an applicant may be selected for this vacancy is GS-7.

Physical Requirements: The work requires some physical exertion such as prolonged periods of standing, bending, reaching, crouching, stooping, stretching, and lifting moderately heavy items such as manuals, record boxes, equipment or assisting patients.

The work requires above average agility and dexterity.

The incumbent may be required to travel between VA and/or Non-VA clinical care sites and possession of a valid driver's license may be required Major Duties:

The purpose of this position is to serve as a Health Technician (Telehealth Clinical)-Advanced at a VA Maine Healthcare Systems, at the Bangor Maine campus.

Duties include, but are not limited to, the following: Coordinating, installing, maintaining and managing the inventory of telehealth technologies including hardware and software with assistance of Biomed and IT; Providing established standardized competency based training, guidance and information on the use of advanced telehealth technologies to patients, staff, and providers; Providing established standardized competency based training for telehealth technology, facilitating interactive simulations for clinical staff participating in telehealth programs; Participating in performance improvement activities aimed at improving the efficiency of the patient telehealth processes; Developing reporting procedures, sampling techniques and measurements at various points in the telehealth processes to identify/analyze inherent weaknesses in work and procedures; Coordinating clinic set up and monitoring of workload capture and issues for assigned patient and provider clinics including telehealth resource based scheduling; Supporting designated complex telehealth programs that require advanced technical skillsets'.

Preparing the clinical environment, which may include preparing medical and telecommunications equipment. Serve as tele-presenter, during clinical video telehealth (CVT) and VVC encounters.

Establishing and maintaining video conferencing connections. Making introductions between patient site and provider site.

Serve as an imager and data manager for store and forward telehealth (SFT) clinical encounters/tasks.

Ensuring patient care is delivered safely by following appropriate procedures for cleaning clinical equipment and the care environment - following patient safety guidelines, protocols, and procedures; Completing standardized clinical questionnaires and templates.

Ensures protection of patient privacy.

Receiving/scheduling requests for simple &/or complex intra-facility and inter-facility telehealth appointments, using electronic resource-based scheduling system.

Screening patients for Telehealth modality. Referring patients to appropriate care.

Monitoring/maintaining schedules of rooms, patients, technologies, clinical providers and presenters, to ensure efficient telehealth operations. Providing patient education, via approved materials.

Supporting the Veteran in completing patient satisfaction surveys. Communicating effectively w/clinical and administrative staff.

Configuring, installing, troubleshooting, cleaning, and performing minor/routine maintenance of assigned telehealth technology.

Providing established education and training to Veterans and clinicians, on the use of telehealth technologies.

Serving as point-of-contact to answer questions/address concerns related to telehealth technologies.

Maintaining knowledge of, and skill in, applying an extensive body of rules, procedures, and operations, in telehealth-related technologies and a variety of computer hardware/software used for telecommunication, data entry and retrieval, record maintenance, document and report generation.

Maintaining regular contact with more experienced staff members, and the facility Telehealth Coordinator, to deduce process issues, equipment needs, problems, data collection, and any other logistical issues.

Arranging and completing test video calls with Veterans, in preparation for clinical encounters, using telehealth technologies.

Ensuring information/resources are maintained for local & remote telehealth providers. Completing other duties as assigned.

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday 7:30am - 4:00pm Telework: Telework is authorized on an ad-hoc basis as approved by your supervisor.

Functional Statement #: F2127 Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Notification : This position is in the Excepted Service. This position is covered by a special rate.

The incumbent may be required to travel to other VA campuses and CBOC's. Veterans' preference does not apply for internal or other current permanent Federal agency employees.

Current 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.