Celebrating Medical Assistant Appreciation Week 2013

Yesterday,  CHC’s Chief Nursing Officer, Bernadette Thomas, shared the following message with CHC staff:

Good afternoon!

As CHC has evolved our services model, we have challenged our Medical Assistants to perform at the top of their professional certifications to become an integral part of the delivery of comprehensive patient care.  Fortunately for each of us and all of our patients, our Medical Assistant’s continue to demonstrate that they are up to the task!

Our Medical Assistants play a major role in conducting primary prevention, ordering and scheduling thousands of mammograms, colon cancer screenings, and vaccinations – and coordinating the care for our patients by identifying and reminding them to schedule critical screenings and tests, assisting with medical records releases, and making urgent referrals.  Thanks to our Medical Assistants, our pediatric patients receive developmental screens, our patients with asthma receive an asthma control test at nearly every visit, and our screening rates for screening for breast, colon, and cervical cancer, for depression, and for alcohol and tobacco abuse continue to climb impressively.

CHC Medical Assistants are now even more engaged in health messaging through their critical role in tobacco cessation, and will continue advancing their professional roles in patient care through health coaching and self-management patient education.   Always progressing, many of our Medical Assistants are pursuing nursing degrees, and at least one is studying to become a Physician Assistant.

Medical Assistants perform quality assurance activities to help us achieve Joint Commission standards.  They process huge volumes of documentation and generate many of the key data that inform our quality improvement, all while maximizing the high touch and engaged patient contact for which CHC is known and admired.

As I have said before, when I think about the world class health care that we all strive to deliver, I believe more than ever that “Behind every quality patient experience, there must be an excellent MA.”

To all of our staff, please join me in expressing my deep appreciation to all of our Medical Assistants for their dedication to our mission and to the patients of CHC!

Our President and CEO, Mark Masselli, added his own gratitude for our wonderful medical assistants:

Greetings

Let me add my voice to Bernadette’s wonderful tribute to our Medical Assistants as this week the nation celebrates their work. We are fortunate to have such a dedicate and committed group of staff who hold the hands of our patients and provide guiding hands in support of the work of  our providers.

Thanks for everything you do.

Please join all of us in celebrating the great work our medical assistants do every day of the year.