Bilingual Medical Assistant
Case Study
Bilingual Medical Assistant
Healthcare employers are eager to hire Medical Assistants who reflect the diversity of their patient population—especially multilingual speakers—to improve patient experience and perform against value-based quality measures.
Medical Assistant is also one of the rare healthcare occupations that require a middle-level of education (requiring only 6 months to 2 years of specialized education) and is considered a good jumping off point for individuals interested in later advancing their career in healthcare.
In this case, NYACH recognized an opportunity to create a pipeline for bilingual New Yorkers to get a well-paying first job in healthcare and to standardize learning requirements that match the new skills employers needed.
Hearing from Employers
In 2016 NYACH began hearing from partners about the changing role of Medical Assistants, who were taking on additional administrative and care management tasks on top of their traditional responsibilities.
As one employer partner shared, “Medical assistants are no longer just rooming patients and taking vitals. We’re moving toward care coordination, reducing avoidable hospitalizations by looking at the social determinants of health, quality over quantity, and team-based care.”
NYACH thus worked with employer partners to create a Medical Assistant Occupational Profile to articulate new trends, skills, background, wages, and other occupation-specific information.
Program Design & Targeted Outreach
Using this profile, NYACH then turned our attention to creating the redesigned Bilingual Medical Assistant Training and targeted pipeline program with CUNY’s LaGuardia Community College.
This new training model includes:
Targeted recruitment for low-wage or unemployed English language learners with intermediate levels of English proficiency
Rigorous assessment process to ensure participants are a good fit for the program
Flexible, part-time evening and weekend schedule
Contextualized 200-hour ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) bridge
Enhanced 368-hour Clinical Medical Assistant Training with integrated ESOL support
Medical vocabulary modules for native Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and French speaking participants
100-hour paid internships at participating healthcare employers, many of whom participated in the training program’s design
Tutoring and vouchers for the National Health career Association EKG Technician, Phlebotomy Technician, and Certified Clinical Medical Assistant exams
Case management and wrap-around services to help participants through the educational and job search process
Learn More
The Bilingual Medical Assistant Training has graduated over 100 students since 2017. Learn more about the program by reading our 10-Year Anniversary Report and our 2019 industry brief.