Summary This position is located in the Department of Surgery, within the Specialty Care Directorate at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center, North Chicago, Illinois. The Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center (FHCC) is larger than just a single facility, but rather a system of facilities throughout Northeastern Illinois which provide medical and dental services to U.S. Military Veterans, Recruits, Active Duty and eligible beneficiaries. Responsibilities Major Duties: The primary purpose of this position is to perform secretarial, administrative, and program support for the Associate Chief Nurse, Surgical Service and the Chief, Anesthesiology and Perioperative Division. This includes other subordinate staff in the Surgical Service, including both VA and DOD staff, as needed. The Program Support Assistant (OA) has overall coordination responsibilities for the administrative, clerical, and general office work in the Operating Room and Anesthesia Department Program Support (80%) The Program Support Assistant (OA) serves as point of contact for customers by phone or in person for the Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care Service. The employee courteously receives visitors and telephone calls and determines through own judgment those which can be handled routinely, referring calls that are appropriate to staff for action when more in-depth or privileged information is required, and triages all calls for urgency and/or assimilates all information messages and forwarding to appropriate staff in a timely manner. The employee follows up to ensure necessary actions are completed. Responsible for completing reports from the Operating room including, cancellation reports, Veterans Affairs Surgical Quality Improvement Program (VASQIP) reports, infection rate reports and any other reports necessary with regards to workload within the operating room. Manages these reports through excel worksheets and the surgical package. Monitors these reports through late staff and/or patients' decision to cancel a case, late first case starts, infections, and room turnover time. Pulls monthly reports containing information input into the surgical package and/or excel worksheet for discussion at the Facility Workgroup Meeting and the Operative and Invasive Meeting. The employee documents and completes meeting minutes. Interprets and verifies provider requests for surgical procedures. Utilizes Vista Surgical package and Patient Integrated Computer Information Charting System (PICIS) to schedule patients for surgery based on operative requests. Additional duties Clerical Duties (10%) The employee is responsible for routing patient records accurately and appropriately to be scanned into the patient's electronic medical records via the file room. Ensures office supplies are at periodic automatic replacement (PAR) levels. Independently monitors office supplies and resources needed to keep the office work- flow running smoothly. The employee participates in team huddles and team meetings, to contribute to the managing and planning of patient care and to provide input in problem-solving on operational issues or procedures. Independently follows-up on team huddles by sharing information and collaborating with the medical team to assure continuity of care. This position will also provide coverage throughout the Clinical Directorate of Surgery when necessary. Timekeeping (10%) The employee is responsible for creating, processing, and maintaining attendance and leave records for assigned Time and Leave (T&L) Units for the Operating Room staff, as well as tracking the hours of service performed by Surgical Services staff. This includes complex schedules, which provide 24 hour per day coverage seven days every week including holidays. Surgical Service employees may work full time or part time on regular, compressed, flexible, and/or intermittent tours of duty and represent multiple position levels under Title 38, Hybrid Title 38, and Title 5. Timekeeping responsibilities include: The employee is considered a resource for payroll matters and independently provides technical advice and assistance on pay and leave matters to employees, supervisors, and other management officials. Responsible for accurately setting up, posting, and maintaining assigned Personnel and Accounting Integrated Data (PAID) time and leave records on a bi-weekly pay cycle. This includes entry of all regular-time, overtime (OT), compensatory time earned and used (CTE/CTU), as well as other types of leave (e.g., authorized absence, court leave, military leave, sick leave, annual leave, etc.). Ensures that necessary remarks for special time and leave posting are entered onto each computerized record within the PAID system and any necessary corrected timecards are completed on a timely basis. Works effectively with all levels of Surgical Services employees, Human Resource Management, and Finance Services to ensure accuracy and timeliness of work and to resolve any problems related to time and leave records. In addition, the employee maintains the electronic on-call schedule through the VISN 12 On-Call Scheduler Generator, ensuring all entries are recorded accurately and updated as often as necessary. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 7:00am - 3:30pm Recruitment & Relocation Incentives: Not authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Telework: Not Available for Telework Financial Disclosure Report: Not Required Requirements Conditions of Employment You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job All applicants tentatively selected for VA employment in a testing designated position are subject to urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use prior to appointment. Applicants who refuse to be tested will be denied employment with VA. Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959 You may be required to serve a probationary period Subject to background/security investigation Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP) Participation in the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination program is a requirement for all Veterans Health Administration Health Care Personnel (HCP) - See "Additional Information" below for details. Qualifications To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 02/02/2024. You will be rated on the following Competencies as part of the assessment questionnaire for this position: Clerical Communications Computer Skills Manages and Organizes Information 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-06 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-05. 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: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-05 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: providing administrative support; collecting, compiling and tracking data and information; processing documents and reports; familiar with word and excel. *Education is usually not credible above the GS-5 for this position; however, graduate education may be credited in those few instances where the graduate education is directly related to the work of the position IMPORTANT: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. All experience listed on your resume must include the month and year start/end dates. 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. 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 IMPORTANT: A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on 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: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-visitus-forrecog.html. Additional Information Physical Requirements: The work places no special physical demands on the employee. The work includes some walking, standing, bending and carrying of light items such as paper and books. Receiving Service Credit for Earning Annual (Vacation) Leave: Federal Employees earn annual leave at a rate (4, 6 or 8 hours per pay period) which is based on the number of years they have served as a Federal employee. Selected applicants may qualify for credit toward annual leave accrual, based on prior work experience or military service experience. This credited service can be used in determining the rate at which they earn annual leave. Such credit must be requested and approved prior to the appointment date and is not guaranteed. Special Employment Consideration: VA encourages persons with disabilities to apply, including those eligible for hiring under 5 CFR 213.3102(u), Schedule A, Appointment of persons with disabilities (i.e., intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities, or psychiatric disabilities), and/or disabled veterans with a compensable service-connected disability of 30% or more. For more information on how to apply using this appointment authority via the Selective Placement Coordinator within the office, contact the facility Human Resources Department at (874) 688-1900. The Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) provide eligible displaced Federal competitive service employees with selection priority over other candidates for competitive service vacancies. To be qualified you must submit appropriate documentation and be found well-qualified (have a final rating of 85 or more before any Veterans preference points) for this vacancy. Information about ICTAP and CTAP eligibility is on OPM's Career Transition Resources website at http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/employee-guide-to-career-transition/. This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies. To ensure compliance with an applicable preliminary nationwide injunction, which may be supplemented, modified, or vacated, depending on the course of ongoing litigation, the Federal Government will take no action to implement or enforce the COVID-19 vaccination requirement pursuant to Executive Order 14043 on Requiring Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccination for Federal Employees. Therefore, to the extent a VA job announcement includes language requiring applicants to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 pursuant to Executive Order 14043, that requirement does not currently apply to this Job Announcement. VA may request information regarding your vaccination status, if selected, for the purposes of implementing other workplace safety protocols, such as masking, physical distancing, testing, travel, and quarantine. If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement.