Healthcare Administrative Assistant
Submitted By: Lynnette Garcia
Accel San Mateo County
Website: https://sanmateoadulted.org/programs/career-education/healthcare-education/intro-to-health-care-basics/
Type of Practice: Learner Transition
Program Area(s): CTE / Workforce Prep / Pre-apprenticeship
Region: Bay Area
Consortia Involved: Accel San Mateo County
The Program of Practice
The Challenge: English Language Learners (ELLs) enrolled in healthcare courses often struggle to understand the complex medical terminology and communications within the industry of healthcare. While the primary courses focuses on technicial skills within each give field of scope, such as Clinical Medical Assistant, Pharmacy Technician, Medical Billing and Coding: The instructional delivery for our accelerated healthcare programs often lacks the grammatical scaffolding needed for students to transition from 'social english' to 'academic and professional' english communications.
Without additional target support, ELL students may fail to demostrate proficiency in essential healthcare communication proficency, leading to increased errors in healthcare documentation, decreased confidence to pursuing an advance certification program.
The Response
To address these concerns, our education approach was to develop a program, Healthcare Administrative Assistant that focuses on obtaining vocabulary by applying medical terminology to real-world clinical scenarios. In doing so, we are assisting our students in developing the 'soft skills' required for an entry-level healthcare position, providing a strong foundation and pathway to further their education. This prepares our students to attain certifications such as Pharmacy Technician, Clinical Medical Assistants, Phlebotomy Technicians, Medical Billing and Coding Specialist and other roles within the field of healthcare.
The Unique Features of the Program
The success of the program, is due in large part to the Integrated Education and Training (IET) program which combines career education healthcare profession instruction workforce training (Tuesdays) and an English Language Learner, (ELL) specialist (Thursdays) both providing instruction in their specialty areas with the focus on upleveling the ELL learners understanding and healthcare professional communications skills. Each specialist, overlap their respective classroom instruction time by 1 hrs to ensure a seemless transition from CE instruction to ELL support.
See attached HAA Syllabus
The Outcome
Many of our students, 70+% show interest in either procuring an entry level receptionist/clerk position and/or going on to further their education in Healthcare. With our most recent cohort with 16 enrolled, 10 passed and completed the program, 4 dropped and 2 transfered. Of those that passed/completed 7 have indicated an interest in continuing their healthcare related training.
We have seen this numbers consistent with each cohort offered.