Administrative Assistant II, PACT

Company: IWK Health

Req ID: 219499 
Department/Program: Palliative Care, Children's Medical Care 
Location: Halifax  
Type of Employment: Permanent Hourly FT (100% FTE) x 1 position(s)
Start Date: ASAP
Union Status: NSGEU Off&Cler, Admin Professionals Bargaining Unit
Compensation: $23.6572 - $26.7684 /hour
Closing Date: 30 April 2026 (Applications are accepted until 23:59 Atlantic Time)

IWK Health is a respected academic health sciences centre located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, providing tertiary and primary care for two million children, youth, adults, and families each year across the Atlantic region. We have a team of approximately 4000 employees, physicians, volunteers, and learners at sites across Nova Scotia. People build careers with IWK Health with our focus on training and mentorship opportunities. We recognize each other’s talent and celebrate our successes. We collaborate in modern facilities or virtually from home, align our work to our values, and enjoy access to enhanced benefits and wellness programs. We are proud to support our patients, families, and communities and are grateful for the generous donor support we receive.

Promoting an anti-racist environment and calling out discrimination as we work and provide care is important to us. We are located in Mi’kma’ki, the unceded and ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq people. Working in Mi’kma’ki and providing care to those across Atlantic Canada is a shared privilege with the original inhabitants who have lived here for many thousands of years prior to colonization. There are 13 First Nation communities across Nova Scotia, and more than 50 historic African Nova Scotian communities that also have a long, deep, and complex history dating back over 400 years. We have the highest percentage of people with disabilities in the country. Nova Scotia has the highest proportion of transgender and non-binary people of any other province or territory in the country. We are active in our work to eliminate discrimination, but we have more work to do to build that trust, acknowledge our biases, and reduce the barriers our diverse communities face. We want IWK Health to be a safe and supportive space of equity and belonging in the care we provide and the employment we offer. We welcome all interested persons who self-identify as Indigenous, Black/African Nova Scotians, Persons of Colour, Immigrants/Newcomers, Persons with Disabilities, and 2SLGBTQIA+ to apply to support our goal for our workforce to be representative of the patients, families, and communities that we care for at all job levels.

The Opportunity

Reporting to the Manager of Pediatric Advanced Care Team (PACT), the Manager of Department of Pediatrics, the Chief Operating Officer of Pediatrics, and the Head of the Division of Palliative Medicine, the Administrative Assistant will provide administrative support to designated members of the Pediatric Advanced Care Team. Primary responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Serving as the main phone contact person for the PACT, including managing calls from families of active patients, from bereaved family members, and from health care professionals within and outside IWK
• Managing the schedules/calendars for PACT/Complex Care members and others (e.g., residents and other trainees), rotating with our service
• Managing administrative processes to support PACT/Complex Care clinical functions (PACT/Complex Care referrals are reciprocal for patient who meet very specific/restricted criteria):
  • Entering patient intake information for new patient referrals
  • Ensuring timely communication w/ team members about new, urgent, and/or subsequent patient visits
  • Maintaining paper-based referral binder/charts and the online databases (currently databases are MS Excel but anticipate transition to a new system, as needed, for formal research data collection), and creating simple reports from the databases
  • Creating Zoom and other virtual platform appointments (e.g., MS Teams) with community providers and others, as needed, to support our clinical work within and outside IWK
  • Coordinating, scheduling, booking, and registering clinical appointments and home visits for children with medical complexity and serious illnesses, and, where possible, coordinating these appointments with other scheduled visits (care coordination) in accordance with family needs/wishes
  • Facilitating and verifying the completion of the IWK death of a patient [DoP] processes for PACT patients who die at IWK and those who die at home/outside IWK. These DoP processes include preparing and maintaining a reserve supply of Health Centre-wide “end of life packets” as well as delivering to appropriate units within the Health Center as needed.
  • Facilitating and tracking standard documents (Palliative Drug Program, accessible parking, Exception Status Drug documentation, DTC, documentation for needed medical equipment, etc.), in coordination with other staff (e.g., Discharge Planning, PACT CNS, etc.)  

The Opportunity

• Facilitating PACT’s bereavement support processes.  These are currently being revised as the bereavement services coordinator position in PACT is currently partially filled in a temporary capacity, as we research and revise the role. The processes previously included the following:
  • Preparing materials for annual group mailings (holiday mail out, fathers’/mothers’ day, etc.) and individual patient ‘anniversary’ mailings (monthly memory boxes, mail to families on specific anniversaries, etc.), and tracking completion
  • Maintaining mailing lists, creating Outlook reminders for bereavement tasks, etc.
  • Managing bereavement material inventory/ordering necessary resources, etc.
• Supporting PACT’s education and research missions, including:
  • Organizing materials and technology for PACT educational activities, booking rooms, booking technical equipment, maintaining rsvp list, facilitating communication with attendees for workshops/education sessions, preparing materials for distribution, and assuring a smooth start to meetings and programs.
  • Organizing the schedules/calendars for learners and trainees who rotate through PACT
• Assisting PACT members with their administrative needs and service functioning, including:
  • Maintaining and ordering PACT standard resource inventory- books, pamphlets, and brochures—as well as standard office supplies.  This includes quarterly book counts and related resource tracking/stewardship processes
  • Assuring the timely completion of provider billing for physicians and call schedules
  • Processing financial reimbursements, purchase requisitions, expense recoveries, and travel arrangements
  • Preparing and submitting certain templated departmental reports, e.g., teaching, research, and administrative quarterly reports
  • Scheduling recurrent meetings, taking minutes/creating summaries, etc., and distributing these as well as following up on assigned tasks
• Maintaining at all times patient confidentiality and ensuring a respectful workplace.

Hours of Work

Mon-Fri; 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Your Qualifications

• Minimum high school diploma or GED
• Graduation from a recognized office administration program is required
• Minimum two (2) years of work experience
• An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered
• Proven team player with excellent communication and interpersonal skills required, as the position includes working with families who are experiencing distress and/or bereavement
• Flexible mindset, comfort working independently, and ability to triage work as our very small but active service experiences surge in workload and are frequently impacted by patient crises, so our teams’ schedules need to be actively managed, and the administrative assistant must be able to re-prioritize their tasks, as needed
• Comfort with Microsoft Office, including Excel, and with standard database entry, required; competency with other computer programs/technology preferred (testing may be conducted on candidates)
• Competency in Access-E forms, Community Wide Scheduling, SAP, and MEDITECH required. This includes the ability to prepare documents (scanning, labelling, etc.) for uploading into MEDITECH
• Competency in Zoom scheduling is required, and related platforms (MS Teams) are an asset
• Competency in pertinent aspects of end-of-life care policies and protocols is an asset
• Experience working in palliative care (adult or pediatric) and/or bereavement services a significant asset
• Competency in basic meeting minute documentation is required, and knowledge of medical terminology is an asset
• Keyboarding skills, minimum of 40 wpm required; 60 wpm preferred (testing may be conducted on the candidate)
• Demonstrated ability to respectfully work with inter-professional team members and persons of diverse backgrounds and abilities required
• Competencies in other languages are an asset

Thank you for your interest in IWK Health.

Please note that we only contact applicants selected for interview/testing. If we invite you to participate in an assessment process (such as an interview or testing), you have the right to request accommodation. Please discuss your needs when invited to the assessment process.

This is a Admin Professionals bargaining unit position. Preference is given to bargaining unit employees for unionized positions. Successful applicants changing unions, bargaining units, or employment status are advised to seek clarification regarding their seniority, benefits, and vacation entitlement and/or usage, prior to accepting the position.

An offer of employment is conditional upon the completion and satisfactory results of all applicable background checks and confirmation of credentials.

If you are an employee of IWK Health, please apply through the internal careers page to ensure you are flagged as an internal applicant.