Open Forum

I have helped champion a CMA committee where they have an outlet and can provide additional feedback and work on projects that can impact their work. We currently only have an RN PAP ladder, but I was looking into ways that would incentivize CMAs to stay within the ambulatory space at my health system, by allowing them to professionally grow and develop while being compensated internally versus leaving for a higher-paying job. 

Hi Kayla, we have a robust advancement program for our medical assistants. I responded to a thread back in 2020 and uploaded our program. If you can't find it, email me directly and i will send to you. 

Hi Patricia, I would very much love to take a look at your CMA advancement materials. I am not sure how to go back to the 2020 thread. Thank you in advance!! 

Kindly, 

Melissa

I helped create a career laddering system for our Medical Assistants at our organization (over 4,000 medical assistants across 7 states) and would be happy to share with you what we've created, learning, and then revised.  

Our program has similar elements to the one shared above by Margaret.  We did choose to simplify it based upon a system-wide survey seeking feedback from our Medical Assistants, for example we removed National Certification as a requirement because we chose to use our own internal education rather than adding additional costs to our MAs.  We originally rolled it out in waves in 2020, so this is year four of our program.  When we first started the program, due to it being year one of COVID, a lot of the ownership fell to our clinical education teams and Human Resources, causing some confusion and decreased standardization.  Since then, following feedback from our MAs and their leaders, we've removed some requirements, expanded opportunities for growth, and encourage a partnership between operational leaders, clinical (nursing) leaders, and human resources to review and approve laddering applications.  We have four ladders for our Medical Assistants (Associate, Journey, Senior, Lead), although in WA state due to there being a few differences in "Registered" status versus "Certified" status we have two separate ladders but with similar criteria.  We did create common application questions to be used across the organization however some of our service areas use this in a Microsoft Forms capacity and some have been able to use Power BI to filter through applications more efficiently.  I've attached our PDF I created when we adjusted our program and our infographic one pager my communications team created.  One thing we did do in the beginning that we continue to enhance is to develop education specifically for our Medical Assistants, so we do not include CE as they have educational pathways that have to be completed prior to applying to ladder up.  I'd be happy to set up a call with anyone interested in learning more, the links on my PDF will not work for anyone outside of our organization however they will give you an idea of resources created to support the employee, their leader, and our education teams. 

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Nicole Stuart-Pesevic MSN RN AMB-BC
Executive Director of Clinical Operations
Providence
Pasco WA
(253)468-8032
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Attachment(s)

PCN Medical Assistant Career Laddering Program.pdf   494 KB 1 version

I'd love to learn more!

Please find our process below. 

Attachment(s)

UKHC TAP Guidelines 10.2023.docx   54 KB 1 version

UKHC TAP glossary.docx   29 KB 1 version

UKHC TAP Guidelines 10.2023.docx   54 KB 1 version

Hey there Kayla, 

We have a robust MA Clinical Ladder that was developed back in 2017 and shared at the AAACN conference in 2019. Since then, we have continued to grow the program and are now looking at morphing the options to be weighted in points, instead of one point per option. We recently made this change to our Nurse Clinical Ladder and participants enjoy the change, as options that are more rigorous are weighted as such and worth more points toward the overall packet achievement. Happy to chat offline in more detail if you'd like. 

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Calli Wood MSN-Ed, RN, NPD-BC
Dir of Nursing, Education/Training
UT Southwestern
Dallas, TX
calli.wood@utsouthwestern.edu
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Attachment(s)

MOA ladder Poster final PDF.pdf   450 KB 1 version