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Financial Vulnerability and Worker Well-Being: A Comparison of Long-Term Services and Supports Workers With Other Health Workers
06-20-20
Over 1.5 million new jobs need to be filled by 2026 for medical assistants, nursing aides, and home care aides, many of which will work in the long-term services and supports (LTSS) sector. Using 16 years of data from the American Time Use Survey, we examined the financial vulnerability of high-...
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CIN Toolkit: Three Strategies to Help Primary Care Teams Treat Substance Use Disorders
01-31-19
This document is a guide for primary care organizations and care teams working to integrate substance use disorder (SUD) treatment services. It provides proven strategies, best practices, and tools used by organizations within California to expand the capability of primary care teams in commercial...
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California’s Physician Assistants: How Scope of Practice Laws Impact Care
09-25-18
Physician assistants (PAs) — state-licensed health professionals who practice medicine in collaboration with physicians and other providers — provide high-quality care, and are more likely to work in rural areas and with underserved populations than are physicians. Their training enables them to...
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Breaking Barriers for Underrepresented Minorities in the Health Professions
07-30-18
In spite of the United States’ racial and ethnic diversity, the health care workforce remains predominately white, particularly in professions that require doctoral degrees. This has a real and negative impact on both patients and health professionals. Diversity in the classroom can translate into...
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Alternative Payment Models Lead to Strategic Care Coordination Workforce Investments
12-21-17
Highlights
Value-based payment is leading to enhanced care coordination staffing.
Sites are task shifting low-complexity care coordination to unlicensed staff.
Important care coordination education gaps necessitate in-depth on-the-job training.
Demonstrating the return on investment of care...
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California's Primary Care Workforce: Forecasted Supply, Demand, and Pipeline of Trainees, 2016-2030
08-15-17
This second report in a series of three Healthforce Center reports on primary care in California, unveils projections of a statewide primary care clinician shortfall in the next 15 years, with the most severe shortages in the Central Valley, Central Coast and Southern Border areas.
Key Findings...
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New Roles for Medical Assistants in Innovative Primary Care Practices
01-31-17
This publication, which is part of a special issue for the journal Health Services Research on the evolving US health care workforce, describes innovative roles for medical assistants (MAs) in the rapidly changing health care environment.
Medical assistants are one of the fastest growing...
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Few Hospital Palliative Care Programs Meet National Staffing Recommendations
09-07-16
This study, which was published in Health Affairs, was the first major data analysis of hospital palliative care programs’ workforce. The growing field of palliative care, which affects nearly all Americans, focuses on improving quality of life for patients with serious illnesses – including...
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California’s Medicaid Personal Care Assistants: Characteristics and Turnover among Family and Non-Family Caregivers
07-15-15
Personal care assistants (PCAs) provide supports and services that enable older adults and individuals with disabilities to remain in their homes and community settings. State Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services programs facilitate use of alternatives to institutional care by paying for...
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Positioning Medical Assistants for a Greater Role in the Era of Health Reform
06-13-15
Medical assistants (MAs) are one of the fastest-growing occupations in the United States. As of 2014 there were about 585,000 MAs in the United States, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics projected the MA workforce to grow by 29% from 2012 to 2022. The MA population is primarily female, ethnically...
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Asian Health Services: Medical Assistants Improve Language Access and Patient-Centered Care
04-03-15
Asian Health Services (AHS) is an urban federally-qualified health center in Oakland, California. It has developed new roles for medical assistants and other frontline staff to capitalize on their language capacity and other skills to provide health coaching and health navigation services to an...
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Medical Assistants in California: Legal Scope of Practice
09-23-13
This summary covers current (as of Sept 2013) scope of practice for medical assistants (MAs) in the state of California. In California, MAs are unlicensed personnel who work in physician (MD), podiatrist (DPM), or optometrist (OD) offices; and clinics. MAs may not work for inpatient care in...
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Patient-Centered Medical Home Model: Do School-Based Health Centers Fit the Model?
08-01-13
School-based health centers (SBHCs) are an important component of health care reform. The SBHC model of care offers accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family-centered, coordinated, and compassionate care to infants, children, and adolescents. These same elements comprise the patient-centered...
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Southcentral Foundation—Nuka Model of Care Provides Career Growth for Frontline Staff
09-01-11
Southcentral Foundation (SCF) assumed management of a primary care system with low patient satisfaction and high staff turnover. This led SCF to create extensive employee development programs and to support a human resources policy in which frontline staff, including medical assistants, can work...
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WellMed’s Medical Assistant Training Program Prepares Students for Health Care Career Ladder
07-28-11
In the course of rapid expansion, WellMed Medical Group found itself hiring increasing numbers of medical assistants (MAs). However, quality and turnover issues with the existing pool of externally-trained MAs inspired the organization to develop its own medical assistant training school. The...
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Workforce Collaborative Trains Medical Assistants to Enhance Care at Community Health Centers
07-27-11
The Central Massachusetts Community Health Center Partnership (CMCHCP) is a collaborative effort of employers and training centers intended to address the workforce needs of Worcester area community health centers. The Partnership’s first project focuses on training incumbent and new medical...
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Franklin Square Hospital Center—Medication Safety Initiative Empowers Medical Assistants
07-27-11
Concern about medication errors inspired Franklin Square Hospital Center to develop a medication safety training program for medical assistants. This initiative empowered medical assistants to think independently, and inspired administrators to offer more standardized training and advancement...
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DFD Russell Medical Centers: Engaging Medical Assistants in Quality Improvement Efforts
06-28-11
DFD Russell Medical Centers in rural central Maine involve medical assistants in quality improvement efforts through a) engaging them in small scale testing and refinement of practice improvements (PDSAs), b) providing them with periodic reports on quality measures directly related to their...
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Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group - Clinical Career Ladder for Medical Assistants
05-30-11
Northwestern Memorial Physicians Group (NMPG) took the unusual step of developing a clinical career ladder for its medical assistants (MAs) in 2003, and, more recently, for its patient services representatives (PSRs). Medical assistants are the largest group of non-licensed employees at NMPG....
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PeaceHealth’s Team Fillingame Uses Patient Activation Measure to Customize the Medical Home
05-01-11
PeaceHealth Medical Group received a grant to pilot a patient-centered medical home in one of its practices in Eugene, Oregon. “Team Fillingame” revised staff roles and added a part-time mental health worker to address patients’ social, behavioral and medical needs. Using a patient activation...
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University of Utah Community Clinics - Medical Assistant Teams Enhance Patient-Centered, Physician-Efficient Care
04-01-11
The University of Utah Community Clinics’ success in achieving a remarkable financial turnaround empowered the organization to innovate further in order to improve the patient experience. The organization implemented a team-based model of care that increased the ratio of medical assistants (MAs)...
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UC Davis Family Practice Center—Medical Assistants Anchor Residency-based Medical Home
04-01-11
In response to long wait times and low patient satisfaction scores, the University of California, Davis Medical Center Department of Family and Community Practice redesigned its residency-based Family Practice Center into a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). This model expanded the role of...
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The Special Care Center—A Joint Venture to Address Chronic Disease
11-01-10
The Atlantic City HEREIU Local 54 Health and Welfare Fund and AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center partnered to develop the “Special Care Center” (SCC), a new clinic that provides coordinated care management to patients with multiple chronic illnesses. The new center recruited and trained a group of...
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Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park Medical Center Information Technology Propels Expansion of Medical Assistant Role
11-01-10
Kaiser Permanente Southern California has developed an innovative tool, the Proactive Office Encounter (POE), embedded in its cutting-edge electronic health record system, HealthConnect. The POE interface prompts medical assistants and licensed vocational nurses to remind patients at the time of...
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High Plains Community Health Center—Redesign Expands Medical Assistant Roles
11-01-10
High Plains Community Health Center, a federally qualified health center in Colorado, redesigned its workflow to increase productivity by increasing the number of support staff per provider. Medical Assistants (MAs) are cross-trained to rotate through front and back office roles in a team-based...
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Cabin Creek Health Systems-Medical Assistants Provide a Senior Medical Home
11-01-10
Cabin Creek Health Systems, a federally-qualified health clinic in West Virginia, trained a team of experienced Medical Assistants to provide risk assessments and care coordination to elderly patients, and to conduct home visits to frail elderly patients in remote rural areas. The organization...
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Union Health Center—Pioneering the Ambulatory Intensive Caring Unit
10-01-10
In 2005, the UNITE HERE (Union) Health Center in New York City embarked on a new initiative that expanded the role of medical assistants (MAs) to provide team-based care and health coaching for patients with chronic diseases. This initiative includes the creation of a career ladder for medical...
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Medical Assistants in Community Clinics: Perspectives on Innovation in Role Development
06-01-10
There has been growing interest in expansion of the role of medical assistants (MAs) in community clinics, where their utilization has increased in recent years. Ten clinics identified as using MAs in an expanded capacity were studied for this brief. Innovative roles typically involved the...
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The Increasing Role of Medical Assistants in Small Primary Care Physician Practice: Key Issues and Policy Implications
02-01-10
The purpose of this project was to understand the role of medical assistants in solo and small primary care physician practices. The study team described the background, training, and certification of medical assistants, assessed the gaps in their training, and discussed the impact these gaps may...
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Staffing Patterns in California’s Licensed Community Clinics: Registered Nurses, Licensed Vocational Nurses, and Medical Assistants
02-01-10
This issue brief describes utilization of Registered Nurses (RN), Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVN), and medical assistants (MA) over the period 2005-2008. We found that the proportion of clinic sites reporting utilization of RNs and LVNs generally did not change during this period, while use of...