This position is located at the John Cochran VA Hospital serving as a Facility Patient Advocate responsible for coordinating complaint resolution by working with facility staff to help resolve issues and concerns and ensuring communication with patients about their experiences of care occurs. Due to the diversity of patients, family and staff use of tact, diplomacy, sound judgment, compassion, flexibility, and a good sense of humor are extremely important.

Duties

Patient Advocacy within VA exist to ensure patient concerns are heard and addressed to improve overall experience and quality of care for patients. Effective, high-functioning Patient Advocacy is integral to fulfilling the goal of providing Veterans with world-class health care. Major duties and responsibilities include: Serve as a liaison between the facility, patients, their families, representatives, and facility staff members in recognizing and removing barriers to the provision of optimum health care to veterans. Work directly with the health care teams, Service Chiefs, and management to facilitate resolutions to problems Responsible for resolutions beyond the capability of front-line staff while participating in system problems resolves by presenting the patient's perspective of the problem and desired outcome Ensure patient advocacy goals, policies, and requirements are met; timely entry of patient/family issues or concerns, collection, analysis, and evaluation of relevant data. Prepare reports based on the findings and report to Services and Leadership,. Monitor evaluation data, analyzes data, identifies discrepancies, makes corrections, and recommends a course of action to assure accuracy and timeliness of patient data. Identify existing or potential problem areas; suggest solutions or alternative methods to existing procedures which contribute to these problems. Follow up on all issues and complaints in a timely fashion. Complaint Resolution Patient Representation and Relationship Management Data Analysis/System Improvement. Ensure VHA Patient Advocacy goals, policy and requirement are met by collecting, analyzing and evaluating relevant data and preparing reports based on that data. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Telework: AD-HOC only; Teleworks only on an as needed basis. Agreement must be in place. Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Patient Representative (Facility Patient Advocate)/PD99864A

Requirements

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement. 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-9. 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:You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-9 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 working as patient advocate or veterans representative; experience working with patients and family; experience handling matters such as making determinations that require more advanced knowledge and/making judgments to resolve problems; point of contact specialized in program questions, responding to inquires utilizing electronic and in person communication; experience applying various conflict resolution techniques. Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree or 3 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.M., if related. *TRANSCRIPT REQUIRED* OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and education beyond the first 2 years of graduate education. *TRANSCRIPT REQUIRED* You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Communications Computer Skills Customer Service Interpersonal Effectiveness Critical Thinking Medical Information Problem Solving Teamwork 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. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: The work includes walking, standing, bending, carrying of light items, and occasionally assisting with a wheelchair. In some instances, relationships with patients and caregivers can become intense and the incumbent is constantly exposed to high levels of stress and anxiety. This position demands emotional stability, as the incumbent is deeply involved with many challenging, seriously ill, and/or dying patients and their caregivers. 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: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-visitus-forrecog.html.

Contacts

• Address VA St Louis Health Care System 1 Jefferson Barracks Drive St. Louis, MO 63125 US
• Name: Nelson Gonzalez
• Phone: 313-471-3936 X52197
• Email: [email protected]