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Best clinical associate certifications

The best certifications for a clinical associate are Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP), Certified Phlebotomy Technician (CPT), and Certified Clinical Research Associate (CCRA).

Clinical associate certifications demonstrate your competency as a clinical associate to employers. However, not all clinical associate certifications provide the same value.

Below is a list of the best clinical associate certifications. Obtaining a clinical associate certification will give you a leg up when you apply for jobs and increase your potential salary.

9 best clinical associate certifications

1. Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP)

Clinical Research Professionals (CRPs) come from a wide variety of backgrounds. CRPs may have backgrounds in nursing, pharmacy, medical technology, business administration, health record maintenance, statistics, biology, teaching, or in other areas. CRPs work in various settings such as cooperative research groups; academic and private institutions; private offices; pharmaceutical, device, and biotechnology companies; Clinical Research Organizations (CROs); Site Management Organizations (SMOs); independent research and development organizations; or organizations involved in the management of clinical trials. These varying backgrounds and settings contribute to the unique knowledge and diverse expertise of CRPs.

Certification details
  • More than two years of education or training after high school required? Yes
  • More than two years of work experience required? Yes
  • Oral or written exam required? Yes
  • Renewal required? Every 3 year(s)

2. Certified Phlebotomy Technician (CPT)

A Certified Phlebotomy Technician (CPT) draws blood from patients or donors in hospitals, blood banks, or similar facilities for analysis or other medical purposes.

Certification details
  • More than two years of education or training after high school required? Yes
  • More than two years of work experience required? Yes
  • Oral or written exam required? Yes
  • Renewal required? Every 2 year(s)

3. Certified Clinical Research Associate (CCRA)

The CRA exam is a measure of the candidate's general and basic knowledge of the information needed to perform his or her on-job duties and responsibilities effectively. Certification is granted in recognition of the candidate's documented education and working experience as a CRA, and successful completion of the written exam. By granting the designation of CRA, ACRP is formally recognizing the professional CRA who has provided evidence that he or she meets these professional standards.

Certification details
  • More than two years of education or training after high school required? No
  • More than two years of work experience required? Yes
  • Oral or written exam required? Yes
  • Renewal required? Every 2 year(s)

4. Certified Clinical Research Coordinator (CCRC)

Certification is increasingly recognized by today's global clinical research industry. Study sites use certification for documentation to sponsors and CROs that the site is professionally managed.Certification assists the public, healthcare professionals and the industry itself by identifying standards for professional practice.The written CRC examination is a measure of a candidate's knowledge of information needed for the CRC to perform this role effectively and the competent application of that knowledge in the conduct of clinical trials.

Certification details
  • More than two years of education or training after high school required? Yes
  • More than two years of work experience required? Yes
  • Oral or written exam required? Yes
  • Renewal required? Every 2 year(s)

5. Basic Life Support (BLS)

The Basic Life Support (BLS) for Healthcare Providers Classroom Course is designed to provide a wide variety of healthcare professionals the ability to recognize several life-threatening emergencies, provide CPR, use an AED, and relieve choking in a safe, timely and effective manner.

Certification details
  • More than two years of education or training after high school required? No
  • More than two years of work experience required? No
  • Oral or written exam required? Yes
  • Renewal required? Every 2 year(s)
Certifying website
Basic Life Support
Certifying organization
American Heart Association

6. Patient Care Technician

1. Completion of an Approved Patient Care Technician Program 2. Minimum of 80 Hours Lecture 3. Minimum of 80 Clinical Rotation In Phlebotomy 4. Must Be Certified Nursing Assistant 5. High School Diploma or G.E.D 6. Successful Completion of Certification Exam

Certification details
  • More than two years of education or training after high school required? No
  • More than two years of work experience required? No
  • Oral or written exam required? Yes
  • Renewal required? Every 2 year(s)
Certifying website
Patient Care Technician
Certifying organization
American Phlebotomy Association

7. Medication Aide Certification (MACE)

The Medication Aide Certification Examination (MACE) is a national medication aide certification examination administered to nurse aides who choose to receive additional training to become certified medication aides. NCSBN develops the MACE examination and administers the exam with the contractual assistance of Pearson VUE. Once certified, these medication aides serve an important role in hospitals and long-term care facilities by helping distribute medications and monitoring for adverse reactions.

Certification details
  • More than two years of education or training after high school required? No
  • More than two years of work experience required? No
  • Oral or written exam required? Yes
  • Renewal required? 
Certifying organization
National Council of State...

8. First Aid, CPR and AED Instructor

Knowing how to respond to a first aid or CPR emergency is one of the most important skills a person can possess. The Standard First Aid, CPR and AED course meets the OSHA requirements and is your tool for training employees or the general public on the latest skills, techniques and expertise in life-saving procedures. The practice and feedback of using related skills in a realistic situation is integrated into the actual teaching experience.

Certification details
  • More than two years of education or training after high school required? Yes
  • More than two years of work experience required? No
  • Oral or written exam required? No
  • Renewal required? No
Certifying organization
National Safety Council
Course that help you to prepare for certification
First Aid & CPR - An in Depth Guide to CPR, AED and Choking
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4.8
(452)

9. Certified Medical Administrative Assistant (CMAA)

A Certified Medical Administrative Assistant (CMAA) performs routine administrative and clinical tasks to keep the offices and clinics of physicians running smoothly.

Certification details
  • More than two years of education or training after high school required? Yes
  • More than two years of work experience required? Yes
  • Oral or written exam required? Yes
  • Renewal required? Every 2 year(s)

What is the best certification for a clinical associate?

The best clinical associate certification is Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP). The Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP) is awarded by the The Society of Clinical Research Associates. The advanced certification is for more experienced employees as it often requires some work experience to acquire.

Here's a bit more background on how to obtain this clinical associate certification:

  • To become a certified Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP), you need to pass the exam.
  • This certificate requires more than two years of work experience.
  • Renew certification every 3 year.

What are some of the most in-demand certifications for clinical associates?

The most in-demand clinical associate certification is Basic Life Support based on all active job postings. Having this clinical associate certification will give you access to more clinical associate jobs with higher salaries.

Best certifications

The most common combination of clinical associate certifications include: Certified Clinical Research Professional (CCRP), Certified Phlebotomy Technician (CPT), and Certified Clinical Research Associate (CCRA).

Online courses for clinical associates to earn certifications

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2. Clinical Trials Data Management and Quality Assurance

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In this course, you’ll learn to collect and care for the data gathered during your trial and how to prevent mistakes and errors through quality assurance practices. Clinical trials generate an enormous amount of data, so you and your team must plan carefully by choosing the right collection instruments, systems, and measures to protect the integrity of your trial data. You’ll learn how to assemble, clean, and de-identify your datasets. Finally, you’ll learn to find and correct deficiencies...

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5. Introduction to Clinical Data Science

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This course will prepare you to complete all parts of the Clinical Data Science Specialization. In this course you will learn how clinical data are generated, the format of these data, and the ethical and legal restrictions on these data. You will also learn enough SQL and R programming skills to be able to complete the entire Specialization - even if you are a beginner programmer. While you are taking this course you will have access to an actual clinical data set and a free, online...

6. Clinical Trials Analysis, Monitoring, and Presentation

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7. Good Clinical Practice ICH GCP for Clinical Research

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9. Design and Conduct of Clinical Trials

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In this course, you’ll learn how to design and carry out clinical trials. Each design choice has implications for the quality and validity of your results. This course provides you and your team with essential skills to evaluate options, make good design choices, and implement them within your trial. You’ll learn to control for bias, randomize participants, mask treatments and outcomes, identify errors, develop and test hypotheses, and define appropriate outcomes. Finally, a trial without...

10. Addiction Treatment: Clinical Skills for Healthcare Providers

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This course is designed with a singular goal: to improve the care you provide to your patients with substance use disorders. By delving into a model case performed by actors, seven Yale instructors from various fields provide techniques to screen your patients for substance use disorder risk, diagnose patients to gauge the severity of their use, directly manage treatment plans, refer out to treatment services, and navigate the various conditions that may limit your patient’s access to treatment...

11. The Beginners Course for Clinical Research

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12. Certificate Course in Clinical Research (CCCR)

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13. Predictive Modeling and Transforming Clinical Practice

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This course teaches you the fundamentals of transforming clinical practice using predictive models. This course examines specific challenges and methods of clinical implementation, that clinical data scientists must be aware of when developing their predictive models...

14. Making Data Science Work for Clinical Reporting

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This course is aimed to demonstate how principles and methods from data science can be applied in clinical reporting. By the end of the course, learners will understand what requirements there are in reporting clinical trials, and how they impact on how data science is used. The learner will see how they can work efficiently and effectively while still ensuring that they meet the needed standards...

15. Good Clinical Practice (GCP)

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16. Clinical Research for beginners

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18. Clinical Natural Language Processing

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This course teaches you the fundamentals of clinical natural language processing (NLP). In this course you will learn the basic linguistic principals underlying NLP, as well as how to write regular expressions and handle text data in R. You will also learn practical techniques for text processing to be able to extract information from clinical notes. Finally, you will have a chance to put your skills to the test with a real-world practical application where you develop text processing...

19. Abnormal Behavior & Clinical Psychology (Certificate)

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20. HI-FIVE: Health Informatics For Innovation, Value & Enrichment (Clinical Perspective)

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HI-FIVE (Health Informatics For Innovation, Value & Enrichment) Training is a 12-hour online course designed by Columbia University in 2016, with sponsorship from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). The training is role-based and uses case scenarios. Also, it has additional, optional modules on other topics of interest or relevance. Although we suggest to complete the course within a month's timeframe, the course is self-paced and so you can start and...

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