The position serves as the Health System Specialist (Innovation Specialist) responsible for leading, coordinating, facilitating and providing ongoing support to the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System in the design and implementation of their innovation initiatives in support of the VHA Innovators Network. They're assigned to work in the Employee Engagement Center within the Office of the Associate Director and will be supervised by the Supervisory Health Systems Specialist Chief Innovator.

Duties

Leads Innovation Development Programs at the local and national level: Supports developing a national level strategy for innovation, including helping to lead and stand-up programs, processes, policies, and infrastructure to support innovation across the VA. Develops local organizational vision that integrates VHA Innovation Ecosystem program goals, strategic priorities, and core values. Creates a facility-level Innovation program segment that encourages creative thinking, innovation, collaboration, and transparency. Develops and executes a facility-wide communication plan in coordination with the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System Public Affairs to promote a culture of innovation i.e., presenting at employee town hall meetings, leadership briefings, or service line briefings. Determines investee eligibility using formulas and methodology and established eligibility criteria. Reviews and analyzes applications, along with a complete portfolio analysis and review of the results and themes distilled to evaluate which projects to fund and support. Negotiates terms and conditions of innovation investments to include costs, schedules, and oversight responsibilities and works with stakeholders, such as contractors, logistics, and fiscal, to execute and negotiate the specific score, objectives, and terms with internal and external stakeholders. Conducts program evaluation, including monitoring and assessing performance, and establishes performance measures for assessment of innovation impact and value to the organization. Analyzes data and progress and prepares reports summarizing data, and themes. Conducts post-award reviews and analyses to identify management, financial, and administrative issues. Proposes ways to improve the Spark-Seed-Spread efforts through either the application or project implementation phase of the Innovators Network. Conducts risk assessments and business reviews of innovation proposals and projects at sites. Coordinates with the VA Tech Transfer Program (TTP) and/or the Office of General Counsel (OGC) to help protect Government interests in regards to intellectual and design patents when necessary, facilitating all discussions with leadership, TTP and the OGC. Ensures all projects for the Spark-Seed-Spread applications are in compliance with federal appropriation law, exercises judgment and initiative to identify what aspects of regulations apply to which procurements, and ensures the use of special clauses, clearances, and determinations applicable to certain procurements. Executes the operating budget, prepares budget requests with justifications, and aligns resources to deliver sustained value to Veterans and/or VA employees. Develops and executes an external communication plan involving marketing and promotional media to demonstrate the value of innovation projects to Veterans and their families. Creates programs to streamline innovation pathways, such as improved contracting, IT, logistics, fiscal, and biomedical engineering. Innovation Competency Building Training, Program, and Events: Develops and executes training activities to VA employees at the facility, VISN, and national level surrounding innovation-related competencies, such as design thinking, entrepreneurship, Human Centered Design, and innovation value creation. Organizes events internal and external to the VA to help facilitate innovation activities, such as hackathons, makeathons, workshops, training programs, and speaker sessions. Teaches and trains employees on the business-related competencies related to innovation projects such as business model analysis, Return on Investment (ROI) analysis, cost modeling and analyses and budgeting. Teaches staff to utilize design thinking to identify the needs of customers and users, utilize these needs to co-design different potential solutions, test those solutions in iterative agile ways, and continue to develop and deploy in flexible, adaptive strategies. Innovation project management and collaboration across sites: Researches, identifies, and implements innovation projects identified as best practices from other sites or within their site. Reviews projects for value and analyzes potential for impact based on local needs, issues, and capacity for successful implementation. Leads teams on VHA Innovators Network programs in collaboration with Innovation Specialists by communicating effectively through stakeholders, making decisions on complex issues, building coalitions to tackle barriers in the innovation process, and working to align their efforts to national, VISN, and local level strategies priorities. Troubleshoots with the other Innovation Specialists and innovation stakeholders, to overcome barriers to the innovation process. Performs other related duties as assigned. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday 8:00am - 4:30pm Position Description Title/PD#: HSS GS-671-12 PD 02381-0

Requirements

• You must be a U.S. citizen to apply for this job
• Subject to a background/suitability investigation
• May serve a probationary period
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959
• A complete application package; Resume, Transcripts, etc.
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement. Specialized Experience GS-12: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-11 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Qualifying specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: .Progressively responsible analytical or administrative, or clinical management or supervisory experience in the healthcare 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: (1) Mission, organizations, programs and requirements of health care delivery systems (2) Regulations and standards of various regulatory and credentialing groups; and (3) Government-wide, agency, and facility systems and requirements in various administrative areas such as budget, personnel and procurement. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: facilitating the design and implementation of innovation initiatives, negotiate terms and conditions of investment awards to include costs, schedules, and oversight responsibilities, negotiate score, objectives and terms, conduct program evaluation, monitor and assess performance, establish performance measures of innovation impact and value to the organization, conduct post award reviews and identify management financial and administrative issues, proposes ways to improve, conducts risk assessments of proposals and projects, executes operating budge and prepares requests, develops training activities. There is no educational substitution for this grade level Physical Requirements: The work is primarily sedentary, although some slight physical effort may be required. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Education

There is no educational requirement for this grade level.

Contacts

• Address Pittsburgh VA Medical Center 1010 Delafield Road Pittsburgh, PA 15215 US
• Name: Christene Ammoscato
• Phone: (570) 824-3521 X24536
• Email: [email protected]