The Statistician provides statistical and analytical expertise to VHA leaders and field managers as a member of the Office of Productivity, Efficiency, and Staffing (OPES), within the Analytics and Performance Integration (API) division of the Office of Quality and Patient Safety (QPS). OPES designs, develops, and maintains national models and studies related to the delivery of health care for both clinical and administrative functions.

Duties

This job announcement will remain open for 10 business days. The initial application review cut-off for this job announcement is 50 applications. The first 50 applications received will be considered first. Applications received after the initial cut-off number (50 applications) may not receive consideration unless otherwise requested by management. Major duties include (but not limited to): Designs and implements numerous data reporting systems for retrieving and displaying statistical data from VA databases, Oracle Cerner sources, and 3rd party databases (e.g., obtained via contract or from a federal partner like Centers for Medicaid Medicare Services (CMS) using statistical analysis (SAS), SQL and similar languages. Designs and implements complex national studies and analyses and performs analytical and evaluative work related to specific content areas. Creates and maintains database, model, and process documentation for contemporaneous and archival use. Designs and develops national tools and knowledge products, including surveys, databases, reports, etc. Responsible for presenting and educating API/PM teams and field-based customers on statistical concepts related to program functions (e.g., sampling & weighting) Produces analytical reports and studies that are made available to a wide variety of constituents, including oversight bodies and external stakeholders. Translates data into meaningful management information. Develops analytical strategies, extracts data from VA's corporate data systems and Oracle Cerner data and/or develops surveys or other tools to collect required data, summarizes the data and infers results to a larger population as appropriate. Provides oversight for the total quality management of information delivered, including information produced via the Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) as well as specific ad hoc reports and analyses. Sets standards and ensures that data and statistical-inferential presentations adhere to standards. Applies and advises on policy implementation impacts to statistical programs, models, and reports. Reviews and recommends appropriate analytical tools and software for unique and challenging problems and studies. Reviews, justifies, and recommends acquisition of appropriate resources to perform detailed analyses. Work Schedule: Required to work Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm. Compressed/Flexible: Not Authorized Telework: Available (applicant is required on site 50% of work schedule per pay period) Virtual: The employee may work at a VA facility or other VA-leased space other than the facility that is hiring the employee and is authorized to telework up to 50%. PD #: 79844O Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not required Physical Requirements: The work is sedentary. There may be some walking, standing, bending, and carrying of light items. No special physical demands are required to perform the work. Travel may be required at times requiring all modes of transportation anywhere in the United States. The work may require some periods of overtime, intense concentration, emotional and mental stability and involves activities under time sensitive conditions. Work Requirements: Work is typically performed in an adequately lighted climate-controlled office space. The responsibilities of the position require occasional travel and subject the employee to various resultant environmental changes. The position requires excellent organizational skills that will enable the incumbent to keep abreast of constantly changing national, regional and VA wide programs, policies and activities particularly with regards to needed information technology capabilities. Expert program management skills are required to provide program planning and control techniques, and evaluation of options to make recommendations on broad, complex issues.

Requirements

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement. You may qualify based on your experience and education as described below: Basic Requirements: Applicants must meet the basic requirement for this position. To meet the basic requirement for Statistician GS-13 and above positions, applicants must have: Degree that included 15 semester hours in statistics (or in mathematics and statistics, provided at least 6 semester hours were in statistics), and 9 additional semester hours in one or more of the following: physical or biological sciences, medicine, education, or engineering; or in the social sciences including demography, history, economics, social welfare, geography, international relations, social or cultural anthropology, health sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, etc. Credit toward meeting statistical course requirements should be given for courses in which 50 percent of the course content appears to be statistical methods, e.g., courses that included studies in research methods in psychology or economics such as tests and measurements or business cycles, or courses in methods of processing mass statistical data such as tabulating methods or electronic data processing. or Combination of Education and Experience -- courses as shown above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. The experience should have included a full range of professional statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying statistical techniques such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance. AND Specialized Experience: In addition to meeting the basic education requirement, you must also meet the specialized experience requirement. Specialized experience for the GS-13 grade level is defined as one year of experience at the GS-12 level, or equivalent that is directly related to the position and which has equipped the candidate with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Examples of specialized experience include but are not limited to: 1) Assessing and improving program effectiveness by using quantitative and qualitative methods for complex management processes and data systems. 2) Applying a wide range of advanced Statistical theory, principles, concepts, methods, techniques, and practices (such as linear and nonlinear modeling, statistical tests, clustering, et cetera). 3) Skillfully employing methods of scientific inquiry and quantitative techniques, setting up a null hypothesis and testing the hypothesis. 4) Designing, constructing, and executing complex algorithms to solve complicated problems pertaining to a wide variety of characteristics of the VHA healthcare system. 4) Sampling, statistical design and analysis, data modeling, network analysis and other operations research analytical techniques (logistic and multiple linear regression), statistical estimation and inference. There is no educational substitution for the GS-13 level.

Education

Preferred Education:
PHD

IMPORTANT:
A transcript must be submitted with your application. Transcripts must depict the name of the college to determine accreditation, and your name must also be displayed on the transcripts. For positions requiring a degree, the transcript must show the date the degree was conferred.

If selected, you must provide official transcripts.

Transcripts should state degree conferred, and have a date. Undergraduate transcripts are required to meet the basic requirement for this position; please submit all transcripts. Copies of Official Transcripts are accepted and are the best way to ensure your education is interpreted correctly in accordance with OPM qualification standards, but unofficial transcripts are accepted if they contain all the required information. If credit for a course is being questioned by the HR Professional performing qualifications, it is your responsibility to provide supporting descriptive information (course syllabus/descriptions) in your application package.

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 VHA Central Office - Quality and Patient Safety Services 6100 Oak Tree Blvd Independence, OH 44131 US
• Name: VHA National Recruitment Center
• Phone: (844)456-5208
• Email: [email protected]