A health care assistant primarily performs support tasks to help nurses in providing care and assistance to patients. Their duties usually include assisting patients with their daily hygienic tasks such as bathing, going to the toilet, dressing, and brushing their teeth. They may also prepare meals according to protocols and guidelines, feed patients, assist them when walking, and run other errands as necessary. Most importantly, a health care assistant monitors the patients' condition and their treatment progress, coordinating with the nurses and physicians regularly.

Health Care Assistant Responsibilities

Here are examples of responsibilities from real health care assistant resumes representing typical tasks they are likely to perform in their roles.

  • Monitor / enforce OSHA standards and coordinate / lead daily, weekly, and monthly safety meetings to educate staff.
  • Manage ventilator settings, suction tracheostomy, tube-feeding assistance.
  • Facilitate physical therapy exercises, positional rotation, monitor medication compliance and effects, provide companionship, carry out ADL's.
  • care professional, extremely competent, providing guidance and counseling for rehabilitation of mentally disturb patients.
  • Process consults requests for electrophysiology, EKG and other services.
  • Assist train staff in the event of cardiac arrest and actively participate in CPR.
  • Regulate, administer and facilitate the use of students prescriptions drugs, asthma and allergies plans.
  • Assist with workforce safety and OSHA guidelines improving the ratio of injure workers returning to full duty.
  • Counsele patient's for clinical review for data entry of confidential documentation, phlebotomy, procedure assist and other clinical duties.
  • Specialize in phlebotomy procedures in children and elderly.
  • Provide high quality companionship and ensure the medications are being administer as prescribed.
  • Review immunization records and follow through with students who do not meet state mandate immunization requirements.
  • Assume primary responsibility for maintaining an accurate and confidential database of employee immunization and BBP records.
  • Maintain unit safety, facilitate daily activity of the patients and ensure human rights for the intellectually disable patients are observed.
  • Offer therapeutic services and crises intervention to emotionally disturb older adults and elderly people living in the retirement and rehabilitation home.

Health Care Assistant Skills and Personality Traits

We calculated that 20% of Health Care Assistants are proficient in Patients, Customer Service, and Healthcare. They’re also known for soft skills such as Integrity, Detail oriented, and Interpersonal skills.

We break down the percentage of Health Care Assistants that have these skills listed on their resume here:

  • Patients, 20%

    Maintained unit safety, facilitated daily activity of the patients and ensured human rights for the intellectually disabled patients were observed.

  • Customer Service, 11%

    Provide General health and contraceptive information to clients and perform clerical functions with excellent customer service.

  • Healthcare, 10%

    Utilized various healthcare software/platforms for accurate data entry and research functions.

  • Patient Appointments, 8%

    Communicated pertinent information regarding returning outpatient appointments and schedules.

  • Direct Patient Care, 8%

    Direct patient care, non-invasive: basic hygiene needs toileting, ambulation, feeding, etc.

  • Medical Equipment, 7%

    Participate in routine clinic facility and medical equipment maintenance and client care audits to meet quality assurance standards.

"patients," "customer service," and "healthcare" aren't the only skills we found health care assistants list on their resumes. In fact, there's a whole list of health care assistant responsibilities that we found, including:

  • Integrity can be considered to be the most important personality trait for a health care assistant to have. According to a health care assistant resume, "home health aides and personal care aides should make clients feel comfortable when they tend to personal activities, such as helping a client bathe" health care assistants are able to use integrity in the following example we gathered from a resume: "required medication administration, skin integrity and nutritional intake assessment, monitoring of vital signs and assist with physical therapy programs. "
  • Another trait important for fulfilling health care assistant duties is detail oriented. According to a health care assistant resume, "home health aides and personal care aides must adhere to specific rules and protocols and carefully follow instructions to help take care of clients." Here's an example of how health care assistants are able to utilize detail oriented: "detailed documentation in accordance with ddd (division of developmental disabilities), state and agency policies. "
  • Another skill that is quite popular among health care assistants is interpersonal skills. This skill is very critical to fulfilling every day responsibilities as is shown in this example from a health care assistant resume: "home health aides and personal care aides must work closely with clients" This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "admitted patients daily skilled at interpersonal communications with proven record to build harmonious relationships with diverse audiences. "
  • In order for certain health care assistant responsibilities to be completed, the job requires the skill "physical stamina." According to a health care assistant resume, "home health aides and personal care aides should be comfortable performing physical tasks" As an example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies: "assisted camp rn with medication administration/ documentation, physical assessments, and minor first aid care. "
  • See the full list of health care assistant skills.

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    What Certified Medical Assistant/Certified Nurse Assistants Do

    A certified medical assistant (CMA) or certified nurse assistant (CNA) is a healthcare professional who performs clinical and administrative duties in clinics or medical facilities. Certified medical assistants provide excellent customer service to patients arriving and departing from the medical facility and administer injections or medications to their patients. In administrative duties, certified medical assistants are tasked to help clients submit insurance claims and encode medical records to the computer system. They also can work with specialized physicians such as ophthalmologists and podiatrists.

    In this section, we take a look at the annual salaries of other professions. Take certified medical assistant/certified nurse assistant for example. On average, the certified medical assistants/certified nurse assistants annual salary is $1,490 higher than what health care assistants make on average every year.

    Even though health care assistants and certified medical assistants/certified nurse assistants have vast differences in their careers, a few of the skills required to do both jobs are similar. For example, both careers require patients, customer service, and direct patient care in the day-to-day roles.

    There are some key differences in responsibilities as well. For example, a health care assistant responsibilities require skills like "healthcare," "patient appointments," "ehr," and "patient education." Meanwhile a typical certified medical assistant/certified nurse assistant has skills in areas such as "rehabilitation," "phone calls," "medical terminology," and "infection control." This difference in skills reveals how truly different these two careers really are.

    Certified medical assistants/certified nurse assistants receive the highest salaries in the health care industry coming in with an average yearly salary of $34,559. But health care assistants are paid more in the education industry with an average salary of $32,564.

    The education levels that certified medical assistants/certified nurse assistants earn is a bit different than that of health care assistants. In particular, certified medical assistants/certified nurse assistants are 3.7% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a health care assistant. Additionally, they're 0.6% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

    What Are The Duties Of a Health Aide?

    A health aide is responsible for providing care and assistance to patients in medical facilities, care centers, and even at home. They typically help patients by administering medicines, monitoring their blood pressure and vital signs, facilitating exercises, preparing meals, providing emotional support, and assisting them in performing hygienic tasks such as bathing, dressing, brushing teeth, and going to the toilet. Furthermore, as a health aide, it is essential to monitor the behavior and progress of patients, reporting to nurses and physicians regularly.

    The next role we're going to look at is the health aide profession. Typically, this position earns a lower pay. In fact, they earn a $4,458 lower salary than health care assistants per year.

    A similarity between the two careers of health care assistants and health aides are a few of the skills associated with both roles. We used resumes from both professions to find that both use skills like "patients," "vital signs," and "cpr. "

    While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, several resumes showed us that health care assistant responsibilities requires skills like "customer service," "healthcare," "patient appointments," and "direct patient care." But a health aide might use skills, such as, "community health," "patient care," "health services," and "math."

    On average, health aides earn a lower salary than health care assistants. There are industries that support higher salaries in each profession respectively. Interestingly enough, health aides earn the most pay in the education industry with an average salary of $30,290. Whereas, health care assistants have higher paychecks in the education industry where they earn an average of $32,564.

    When it comes to the differences in education between the two professions, health aides tend to reach similar levels of education than health care assistants. In fact, they're 1.7% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.6% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

    How a Home Health Aid Compares

    Home health aides provide care and assistance to patients who have chronic illnesses, injuries, disabilities, or age-related challenges inside the patient's home. They monitor the patient's condition and help them in any activity they may need assistance in. They provide support to both the patient and the family to manage the patient's condition. Home health aides care for the patient by providing personal services like bathing and basic grooming, designing nutritional plans, cooking and preparing meals, running errands, maintaining the cleanliness of the home, managing medication intake, and ensuring the home is safe and secure for the patient.

    The home health aid profession generally makes a lower amount of money when compared to the average salary of health care assistants. The difference in salaries is home health aids making $7,643 lower than health care assistants.

    While looking through the resumes of several health care assistants and home health aids we discovered that both professions have similar skills. These similarities include skills such as "patients," "vital signs," and "cpr," but they differ when it comes to other required skills.

    Some important key differences between the two careers are a few of the skills necessary to fulfill responsibilities. Some examples from health care assistant resumes include skills like "customer service," "healthcare," "patient appointments," and "direct patient care," whereas a home health aid might be skilled in "companionship," "patient care," "hha," and "in-home care. "

    Interestingly enough, home health aids earn the most pay in the health care industry, where they command an average salary of $27,162. As mentioned previously, health care assistants highest annual salary comes from the education industry with an average salary of $32,564.

    When it comes to education, home health aids tend to earn similar education levels than health care assistants. In fact, they're 3.3% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.6% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.

    Description Of a Care Associate

    Patient care associates typically work at different healthcare settings where their primary job is to provide basic patient needs and comfort. They are also responsible for several patient care tasks, including bathing patients, changing the pillows and bedsheets of patients, and serving patients' meals. They should comply with safety protocols when performing these tasks. Some of them can give patients medication depending on the level of their training. To become a patient care specialist, one should possess several skills, such as good communication.

    Care associates tend to earn a lower pay than health care assistants by about $2,334 per year.

    While their salaries may vary, health care assistants and care associates both use similar skills to perform their jobs. Resumes from both professions include skills like "patients," "customer service," and "direct patient care. "

    Even though a few skill sets overlap, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a health care assistant might have more use for skills like "healthcare," "patient appointments," "ehr," and "ekg." Meanwhile, some care associates might include skills like "pca," "medical terminology," "infection control," and "patient safety" on their resume.

    In general, care associates make a higher salary in the health care industry with an average of $31,845. The highest health care assistant annual salary stems from the education industry.

    The average resume of care associates showed that they earn similar levels of education to health care assistants. So much so that the likelihood of them earning a Master's Degree is 1.5% less. Additionally, they're less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree by 0.1%.