What is a Health Care Assistant?

Health care assistants, otherwise known as auxiliary nurses, or support workers, perform various patient care and administrative duties in medical settings. They assist with taking and delivering blood samples. They help move patients with mobility problems from one place to another. Also, they oversee the proper storage and sterilization of all equipment used in medical facilities. Aside from that, they spend most of their time with patients monitoring and recording changes in their health. Additionally, they oversee the hygiene needs of patients, serve their meals, and check vital signs.

Health care assistants find employment in hospitals, nursing homes, and in-home healthcare facilities. Potential employers require a high school diploma and completion of a certificate program or an associate's degree in medical assistance. This role requires skills such as communication, empathy, multitasking, and patient-care skills. Additional certifications are a plus. This job pays $35,620 yearly, which is between the range of $26,000 and $49,000.

What Does a Health Care Assistant Do

There are certain skills that many health care assistants have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed integrity, detail oriented and interpersonal skills.

Learn more about what a Health Care Assistant does

How To Become a Health Care Assistant

If you're interested in becoming a health care assistant, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 36.7% of health care assistants have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 5.5% of health care assistants have master's degrees. Even though some health care assistants have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Learn More About How To Become a Health Care Assistant
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Health Care Assistant Career Paths

As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a health care assistant can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as registered nurse, progress to a title such as registered nurse supervisor and then eventually end up with the title nursing director.

Health Care Assistant

Average Salary for a Health Care Assistant

Health Care Assistants in America make an average salary of $34,892 per year or $17 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $47,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $25,000 per year.
Average Health Care Assistant Salary
$34,892 Yearly
$16.77 hourly
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Roles and Types of Health Care Assistant

The role of a health care assistant includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general health care assistant responsibilities:

  • Front and back office responsibilities for contraceptive or surgical health center. The contraceptive program provides birth control, pregnancy testing, sexually transmitted disease testing, well-woman exams, well-man exams,
  • Assists the patient with feeding, drinking, ambulating, grooming, toileting, dressing, socializing
  • Demonstrates a commitment toservice, hospital values

There are several types of health care assistant, including:

Home Health Aid

Role:

Home health aides are important for people who have disabilities, chronic illnesses, or cognitive impairments. As a home health aide, you're responsible for assisting with the daily life of your patients or clients.

While, you may believe home health aides only work in their clients' homes, that's certainly not correct. Aides can also work in group homes or even day service programs. Generally, you'll only need a high school diploma to become a home health aid.

Your days and responsibilities as a home health aide will vary, depending on how many clients you work with. Some days you'll only work with one client for the entire day, then other days you may find yourself with 4-5 clients for shorter time periods. It's definitely a job that will keep you on your toes. You'll never know what to expect each day.

  • Average Salary: $27,249
  • Degree: High School Diploma

Child Care Attendant

Role:

People who love to take care of young children and want this mutual understanding with kids to adopt into a profession often end up as child care attendants. Child care attendants normally work in daycare centers or homes where they instruct and supervise children.

You can simply become a child care attendant with a GED or a high school degree. An Early Childhood Education (ECE) certificate is an added bonus to your resume. Other than being patient, a caring personality, attention to safety, and good decision-making skills will make you a successful candidate while applying for the position of child care attendant. First aid training can also come in handy during critical situations.

Child care attendants make about $13 an hour, which amounts to around $27,000 in a year. However, the career growth rate is tremendous in the US, which means that you can expect a lot of job opportunities in the future.

  • Average Salary: $27,542
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Health Care Provider

Role:

Generally, the healthcare provider we're most familiar with is our primary care physician (PCP) or the specialists you see when you need individual specific medical care. But there are all different types of healthcare providers. Each healthcare provider provides a particular healthcare service you might need.

The kind of work you do as a health care provider determines your work environment. Health care providers may work in a hospital, doctor's office, nursing facility, school, insurance office or, laboratory. The BLS reports that some specialties may require extensive travel. Nurses may travel throughout school districts or to patients' homes, while medical equipment repair specialists often need to travel to fix critical diagnostic equipment.

Typically, annual earnings for health care providers can vary from $26,550-$66,260 for those with an associate degree and experience. However, your average median earnings would be around $40,350 annually, according to the BLS.

  • Average Salary: $39,309
  • Degree: High School Diploma
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States With The Most Health Care Assistant Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active health care assistant jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where health care assistants earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Health Care Assistant Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California8,129$39,908
2Pennsylvania6,750$33,468
3Texas5,679$30,361
4Florida5,269$28,341
5Ohio5,026$31,676
6New York4,173$36,285
7North Carolina4,158$29,236
8Illinois3,857$34,610
9Michigan3,741$31,488
10Minnesota3,436$36,960
11Massachusetts3,382$38,759
12Georgia3,026$29,212
13Virginia2,870$30,089
14Indiana2,749$33,552
15New Jersey2,684$37,644
16Washington2,461$41,298
17Wisconsin2,415$33,467
18Tennessee2,356$29,759
19Missouri2,188$29,854
20Arizona2,133$31,998
21Maryland1,847$35,681
22Colorado1,838$31,471
23Iowa1,515$31,894
24South Carolina1,413$29,726
25Oregon1,400$41,242
26Kentucky1,315$30,070
27Connecticut1,303$37,828
28Alabama1,240$26,497
29Oklahoma1,123$30,564
30Louisiana1,076$31,510
31Kansas1,000$28,786
32Arkansas941$29,768
33Utah788$34,707
34New Hampshire771$39,090
35Mississippi729$27,743
36New Mexico716$29,873
37Nebraska700$29,367
38Maine645$36,778
39Nevada615$33,328
40West Virginia586$28,481
41Idaho580$36,805
42Delaware426$36,836
43Rhode Island423$39,228
44Montana397$35,513
45South Dakota390$34,655
46North Dakota378$37,863
47Vermont295$36,198
48Hawaii243$37,110
49Wyoming175$33,139
50Alaska173$41,318

Health Care Assistant Education

Health Care Assistant Majors

Nursing
22.1 %
Medical Assisting Services
11.8 %
Business
11.0 %

Health Care Assistant Degrees

Bachelors

36.7 %

Associate

20.3 %

High School Diploma

16.8 %

Top Skills For a Health Care Assistant

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 20.1% of health care assistants listed patients on their resume, but soft skills such as integrity and detail oriented are important as well.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Health Care Assistant Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Health Care Assistant templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Health Care Assistant resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

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Health Care Assistant diversity

Health Care Assistant Gender Distribution

Female
Female
81%
Male
Male
19%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among health care assistants, 81.2% of them are women, while 18.8% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among health care assistants is White, which makes up 35.6% of all health care assistants.

  • The most common foreign language among health care assistants is Spanish at 65.3%.

Online Courses For Health Care Assistant That You May Like

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1. Health Care Delivery in Healthcare Organizations

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Have you ever needed health care and thought that there must be better ways to get or deliver health care? For example, have you found yourself thinking that there should be a way to get a diagnostic test or treatment at home? Or do you work in a healthcare organization and find yourself thinking that there must be better ways to deliver health care? If you have, this course is for you. Course content includes an overview of health care delivery including healthcare consumerism, the patient's...

2. Essentials of Palliative Care

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This course starts you on your journey of integrating primary palliative care into your daily lives. You will learn what palliative care is, how to communicate with patients, show empathy, and practice difficult conversations. You will learn how to screen for distress and provide psychosocial support. You will learn about goals of care and advance care planning and how to improve your success with having these conversations with patients. Finally, you will explore important cultural...

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Become A Certified Home Health Aide, Personal Care Aide, Nurse Aide/ Caregiver At The End Of This Course. Enroll Now!...

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Best States For a Health Care Assistant

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a health care assistant. The best states for people in this position are Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California. Health care assistants make the most in Alaska with an average salary of $41,318. Whereas in Washington and Oregon, they would average $41,298 and $41,242, respectively. While health care assistants would only make an average of $39,908 in California, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.

1. New Hampshire

Total Health Care Assistant Jobs: 771
Highest 10% Earn:
$53,000
Location Quotient:
1.24

$39,090

Avg. Salary

View 771 Health Care Assistant Jobs In NH

2. Maine

Total Health Care Assistant Jobs: 645
Highest 10% Earn:
$48,000
Location Quotient:
1.36

$36,778

Avg. Salary

View 645 Health Care Assistant Jobs In ME

3. North Dakota

Total Health Care Assistant Jobs: 378
Highest 10% Earn:
$47,000
Location Quotient:
1.14

$37,863

Avg. Salary

View 378 Health Care Assistant Jobs In ND
Full List Of Best States For Health Care Assistants

How Do Health Care Assistants Rate Their Jobs?

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Top Health Care Assistant Employers

Most Common Employers For Health Care Assistant

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1The University of Kansas Health System$36,716$17.657
2Planned Parenthood$36,184$17.40192
3Private Health Care Systems$35,368$17.0010
4*n/a*$35,362$17.007
5Muscular Dystrophy Association$33,027$15.888
6Los Angeles Unified School District$32,110$15.448
7University Hospitals$31,968$15.376
8Hennepin Healthcare$31,444$15.1250
9Natural Grocers$30,977$14.8920
10Huntsville Hospital$30,695$14.769
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Updated April 6, 2023