Medical assistants (MAs) play a vital role in the delivery of healthcare, often being one of the first interactions patients have at their physicians’ offices. With a shortage of providers on the horizon, practices will continue to rely heavily on medical assistants to keep practice operations smooth while providing high-touch patient care.

By 2030, all baby boomers – more than 78 million – will be older than 65. That means that many of today’s highly-skilled, frontline healthcare workers will be transitioning to retirement and moving from practitioner to patient. This aging population will increase the need for healthcare services, creating more strain on providers who already face difficulty in staffing.

On this special episode of OnScript with NHA, we celebrate Pharmacy Technician’s Day by highlighting technician Susan Mumme, CPhT. Susan is the Pharmacy Purchasing Coordinator at Ochsner Medical Center – Hancock, and was recommended to us for an interview by a former pharmacy supervisor.  During this episode, we talk about how Susan got started in her pharmacy career, what changes over the past 20 years have been most impactful to her as a pharmacy technician, and find out what it was like taking care of her patients while taking a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina. 

Happy Pharmacy Technician’s day to all those pharmacy technicians taking care of their patients, directly or indirectly.  Your dedication to safety and quality throughout the entirety of the medication use process is not only necessary, but also appreciated.  Whether you’re behind the counter, mixing IVs in the hospital basement, or even teaching the next generation of pharmacy technician, we celebrate you and all you bring to the field of healthcare!  

Read the full transcript

You have seen it as a trending topic, primary care practices are talking about it, you’ve heard that change is coming, but what is team-based care anyway?

Empowering professionals through certification is at the heart of our mission, and we regularly conduct industry research to ensure the content and exams we provide to current and future certification holders are relevant and keep up with industry trends.

Recently, we looked at the current state of the EKG technician profession — and what's to come in the future. During this research, we surveyed and interviewed working EKG technicians across the country. Here's a what we learned.

A few short weeks ago I was able to attend the 2019 Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Congress in Boston, MA as a representative of NHA. High-quality credentialing solutions and our expertise in allied health is something that I’m very proud of as a director of educational and employer partnerships. However, we want organizations to see us as something more than that. We are at the forefront of helping to reshape healthcare through developing, advancing and advocating for the frontline healthcare worker, with the goal of improving patient care.  

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects allied health professions will grow at rates that far exceed the U.S. average for all occupations. This should tell us that a visit to our doctor’s office today could look different tomorrow, and again, a year from now.

The role of a Certified Patient Care Technician (CPCT/A), or patient care coordinator and Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) are oftentimes assumed to be the same job in allied health. While these roles are similar there are some distinct differences. However, if you are trying to optimize your learners career opportunities there are many reasons why seeking both credentials makes sense. They may work better together.

This article was originally published by Pharmacy Times on August 27, 2019.