A healthcare technician is an allied health professional who provides direct care to patients with or without the supervision of registered nurses. Their primary position is to help medical staff complete tasks around their assigned unit or clinic and accommodate patient needs. Healthcare technicians are typically found in specialty clinics, intensive care, emergency departments, or laboratory collection facilities.
Health care technicians who work directly with patients must have an excellent bedside manner and great communication skills, as well as medical knowledge, technical skill, and the physical strength to help patients in and out of bed. Health care technicians who work in diagnostic settings must have strong analytical skills and technical knowledge. Health care technicians who work in pharmacy settings or doctors' offices must have good customer service skills.
Most health care technician careers require an associate's degree from an accredited two-year patient care technician or medical assistant program. Employers typically require state nurse's aide certification in addition to basic life support and CPR certification. The average hourly salary of a health technician is $18.07, which amounts to over $37,000 annually. The career is expected to grow 12% in the following years.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a health technician. For example, did you know that they make an average of $18.07 an hour? That's $37,595 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 12% and produce 16,300 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many health technicians 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 patience, physical stamina and interpersonal skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a health technician, we found that a lot of resumes listed 11.3% of health technicians included health care, while 8.4% of resumes included customer service, and 7.3% of resumes included blood pressure. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the health technician job title. But what industry to start with? Most health technicians actually find jobs in the health care and non profits industries.
If you're interested in becoming a health technician, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 30.5% of health technicians have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 10.0% of health technicians have master's degrees. Even though some health technicians have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a health technician. When we researched the most common majors for a health technician, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on health technician resumes include high school diploma degrees or master's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a health technician. In fact, many health technician jobs require experience in a role such as certified nursing assistant. Meanwhile, many health technicians also have previous career experience in roles such as medical assistant or cashier.
