The primary purpose of this position is the supervision of the Specimen Acquisition Section(s), which falls under the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Service Line at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Responsible for the supervision of the staff responsible for the phlebotomy of patients within the hospital and receiving outpatient services and maintaining the oversight of coordinating and monitoring quality control and assurance in the Specimen Acquisition unit.

Duties

Major duties and responsibilities include but not limited to: Direct management of blood drawing and accessioning/processing personnel. Answer technical test questions, forwards inquiries to the appropriate department and manages supplies and inventory. Report statistics on specimen collection workload. Maintain the necessary staff to provide coverage as required to support the facility. Oversee the performing of all specimen-logins, production and distribution of all works lists and specimens and successful phlebotomy of all Veterans requiring blood work to be done. Required to draw blood on patients using aseptic venipuncture techniques, assessing the patient's status relative to age specific needs, checking patient identification, and selecting the appropriate tube(s) for the test required. Responsible for overseeing the processing of a wide variety of complex specimens ranging from hospitalized patients and patients from outpatient and community-based clinics. Ensure staff are familiar with tests performed throughout the laboratory, i.e. chemistry, hematology, urinalysis, coagulation, microbiology, histology, and cytology. Utilize VISTA to acknowledge specimen receipt and orders and accessions all specimens correctly and ensures all specimens are recorded accurately in VISTA as well as proper documentation performed by all staff involved. Prepare and process a variety of specimen types, recognizing appropriate test requirements according to laboratory information guidelines for shipping and transport. Monitor and maintain the Blood Drawing area(s) assuring appropriate and adequate materials are sufficient for required services in a safe manner. Assist with the development of technical bulletins, procedures, training materials and other program materials Responsible for analyzing specimens received from the College of American Pathologists as part of the laboratory Quality Assurance program. Receive and evaluate specimens from the CBOCs. Perform additional duties in Chemistry and/or Hematology sections. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 5:00 am - 1:30 pm, subject to change based on the needs of the Agency Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Supervisory Health Technician/PD04019-0 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not required

Requirements

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 03/20/2024. 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-08 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07. 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 as described below: Individual Occupational Requirements: Specialized Experience: You must have specialized experience in support duties to medical or health personnel such as audiologists, speech pathologists, medical officers, and optometrists. Therefore, technician experience is experience that required application of the knowledge, methods, and techniques of the position to be filled. Note: This experience must experience must be fully documented on your resume and must include job title, duties, month and year start/end dates AND hours worked per week. In addition to the Individual Occupational Requirement: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-07 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Management of day-to-day workload, daily operations, disruptive behavior, and team building; Inpatient specimen-logins, collecting and maintaining statistics on specimen collection workload and utilizing proper techniques for accessioning, processing, and storage of specimens; Using aseptic venipuncture techniques and specimen labeling; Receiving and checking in patients, managing patient records, correctly identifying patient information according to regulatory agencies; Performing glucose tolerance testing following procedure and utilizing timing interval computations. Note: This experience must be fully documented on your resume and must include job title, duties, month and year start/end dates AND hours worked per week. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Administration and ManagementPlanning and EvaluatingSpecimen CollectionTechnical Competence 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 performed by the Supervisory Health Technician requires the ability to move around the office and clinic and requires some standing, walking, bending and carrying of light items up to 20 pounds such as office files, copy paper, supplies, etc. The work involves regular and recurring moderate risks or discomforts which require special safety precautions, e.g., working around carts, or machines; with biohazardous samples, contagious diseases or irritant chemicals. Employees are required to use protective clothing or gear such as masks, gowns, coats, goggles, gloves or shields to moderate risks, or to follow procedures for minimizing risk. 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

There is no educational substitution at this grade level.

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/.

Contacts

• Address Michael E DeBakey VA Medical Center 2002 Holcombe Boulevard Houston, TX 77030 US
• Name: Susan Reynon
• Phone: (808) 726-0496
• Email: [email protected]