Training and Utilizing Non-Licensed/Non-Certified Personnel to Combat Clinical Staff Shortages

Clinical staffing shortages in the ambulatory care setting are not going away anytime soon with conventional thinking in regard to clinical staff vacancies. The reason for this varies from not having enough students graduating to fill the needs to difficulty recruiting new graduates due to pay disparities between inpatient and outpatient nursing. To combat this, we have implemented a training program to advance receptionists and other non-licensed, non-certified assistive personnel to the role of technician to assist with tasks that do not require licensure or certification. The tasks include, but are not limited to, vital signs, height/weight, past medical history, EKG, and clearing non-triage phone messages. The purpose of this was to maximize our licensed and certified staff to work their true scope of practice by spending less time doing tasks that can be done by a technician. Technicians are also given the opportunity to complete certified clinical medical assistant (CCMA) training through the local college, which is fully supported by grants and hospital funding. This has created a pipeline of certified staff to fill vacancies while training them to the technician role in the process. The technician role is not used universally in the individual practices; however, there have been opportunities to utilize the technician in a dual receptionist/technician role when the technician-only role is not available at a particular practice. This allows the practices to have additional clinical support when there are call-ins, vacations, or just spikes in volume during the day without needing to request additional FTEs in their budget. After six months of this program, seven non-clinical staff have advanced to a CCMA role from the receptionist and technician roles. This has created an avenue for our non-clinical staff to learn additional skills and qualify for career advancement while meeting a growing need for clinical staff in the ambulatory care setting.