About this role

Applicants pending the completion of educational or certification/licensure requirements may be referred and tentatively selected but may not be hired until all requirements are met. Basic Requirements: United States Citizenship: Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy. English Language Proficiency. In accordance with 38 U.S.C. 7402(d), no person shall serve in direct patient care positions unless they are proficient in basic written and spoken English.

Individual Occupational Requirements: Degree: Mathematics, statistics, computer science, data science or field directly related to the position. The degree must be in a major field of study (at least at the baccalaureate level) that is appropriate for the position. (Transcript must be submitted). OR Combination of education and experience: Courses equivalent to a major field of study (30 semester hours) as shown in paragraph above, plus additional education or appropriate experience.

AND 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-13 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-12. 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 GS-13: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-12 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Conduct program evaluation projects involving large and complex healthcare data sets, Develop and maintain electronic program monitoring tools for wide dissemination of data, Expertise with natural language processing to analyze data and interpret results.

You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Analytical Thinking Attention to Detail Customer Service Data Management Database Administration Database Management Systems Decision Making Flexibility Integrity/Honesty Interpersonal Skills Learning Reasoning Research Self-Management Stress Tolerance 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. Preferred Experience: The Incumbent will conduct program evaluation projects involving large and complex healthcare data sets using knowledge about multiple fields of research that bridge diverse disciplines. Projects will require expertise to analyze data, and interpret results.

Responsibilities include working on national work groups, providing technical support, implement OMH initiatives, serving as a liaison to other program offices, and write programs that use extremely large relational datasets to create complex measurements, analyze measurements, and summarize measurement data. Program evaluation includes, but are not limited to locate data and write SQL code to accurately identify a patient cohort of interest in VA's corporate data warehouse (CDW) and populate a table for this cohort with diverse data such as demographics, diagnoses, appointments, and VHA encounters.

Develops and maintains electronic program monitoring tools for wide dissemination of data inside and outside VA, including to VA Central Office, Office of Informatics and Analytics, professional organizations, and the public. These monitoring tools will include interactive reports and dashboards with the use of advanced data visualization software (e.g., Microsoft Power BI or SQL Server reporting Services). The incumbent actively participates in national initiatives involving data syndication and data interoperability and collaborates with internal and external subject matter and data experts in data innovation and migration projects.

Specifically, the data scientist will be heavily involved in VA's efforts to transition from VistA to the Federal electronic health record (EHR), a project of national significance. The incumbent may provide technical and scientific supervision of the work of staff assigned to these projects and monitor progress toward project goals and deadlines. Attend conference calls or briefings about relevant activities in lieu of the Director or Deputy Director, review materials, and report on these activities.

This is a full performance level, non-supervisory position that is located in the Northeast Program Evaluation Center, which is within the Office of Mental Health (OMH), VA Central Office. The position reports to the NEPEC Deputy Director and works directly with senior leadership of the office. The purpose of this position is to serve as a senior data scientist within NEPEC and advise the NEPEC leadership and others on a broad range of issues related to health care data.

This position is to evaluate VA mental health systems, oversee and develop procedures, guidelines to enhance program monitoring and support the strategic priorities of the OMH. The range of activities includes ensuring that data products are continuously accessible, and engages in inter-agency collaboration, program evaluation with various health care data and participates in strategic planning around VHA's health care data.

The incumbent must be able to formulate projects related to clinical services, define data management and data syndication standards for assessing novel data infrastructure, and investigate and resolve unusual and highly technical problems with big health care data. To be successful, the incumbent must work productively with diverse elements outside VA (e.g., GAO, other Federal agencies, Oracle, and academic institutions), and advise leadership on communicating with these external stakeholders.

Reference: For more information on this qualification standard, please visit https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/. Physical Requirements: Sedentary, some walking, sitting, standing and carrying of light items.

Source listing: usajobs