A Clinical Ladder That Matters: Development of a Progressive Growth Ladder for Medical Assistants

Purpose: Develop a performance-based progression program that is designed to retain medical assistants. This is achieved by recognition of excellence in engagement, clinical skills, and leadership opportunities.
Background: Previous medical assistant (MA) advancement was only achieved by years of service and did not require additional learning or growth opportunities to support their clinics. Clinic leaders needed structure to allow for super user and champion roles to support the work to ensure their clinics were successful.
Methods: Our development journey included the following items: Organize teams to create progression structure. Nursing and MA leaders had front-line MAs review the structure for ideas. Create 3 pathways from MA resident, MA, and MA senior. Each pathway has requirements that are needed to advance to the next pathway. Develop a review period to allow for twice-a-year advancement (April and October). Clinic managers and nursing leaders are to sign off to ensure requirements are being met. MA certification is required for MA seniors to allow for growth in knowledge of MA skills. Develop a fillable form that follows caregivers to track their progress.
Results: We are in our third year since implementation and are seeing positive results by recognizing the extra work that is needed to create a safe and high-quality environment for positive patient outcomes. The new structure also provides professional growth as a medical assistant.
Conclusion: The use of the new MA progression process sets the stage for Intermountain Health to continue to improve the patient experience by providing stronger engagement and leadership opportunities for our medical assistants, which leads to safer outcomes.