Dental assistants are a significant area of need in both urban Portland and in rural dental practices around Oregon. Getting your basic dental assisting certification and an Expanded Functions exam helps raise your qualifications amongst dental assistants. What's more, Portland Community College offers the Integrated Community Dental Assisting program to train versatile dental assistants with a wealth of classroom and hands-on knowledge going into their first jobs. Let's look at why this role is so crucial.
PCC Institute for Health Professionals
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Make a Difference with Integrated Community Dental Assisting
Topics: Healthcare Operations, dental assisting
Meet Your Instructor: Sheldon Levy - Clinical Research
Sheldon Levy, PhD, MPH is an instructor in the RCC-Institute for Health Professionals Foundations of Clinical Research.
Topics: Healthcare, Meet the IHP Team, Clinical Research
Meet Your Instructor: Aaron White - Clinical Research
Topics: Healthcare, Meet the IHP Team, Clinical Research
Pharmacy Technician 101: Is it Right for You?
Updated March 1, 2023
Healthcare is a field that never goes out of style. With the rise in chronic illnesses and an aging population, the demand for healthcare professionals is only growing. Working as a pharmacy technician is an accessible and quick entry point into a fulfilling healthcare career.
With flexible hours, a solid salary, and the opportunity to help others, being a pharmacy technician is a wonderful way to help people while securing your financial well-being. Here, we cover the ins and outs of what a pharmacy technician does to help you determine if it's the right career path for you.
Topics: Healthcare, Entry Level Healthcare Careers
Jump into Health Care as a Phlebotomist
There's a misconception that getting into healthcare as a career takes many time-consuming years of study. Many people begin their healthcare careers with a rapid training course that moves them into an entry-level job. People develop their expertise from entry-level careers in phlebotomy or other areas of healthcare. Others work full-time while taking evening coursework to move into different healthcare roles.
Unlike going to school full-time for years, this method of incrementally advancing through the healthcare field provides an income while studying. It can still help you move into your ideal healthcare role eventually. Let's look at how to become a phlebotomist Portland desperately needs and why this role is well-suited to growing a healthcare career of various kinds.
Topics: Healthcare Operations, Phlebotomy
How Dental Assistants Keep Dentist's Offices Afloat
Dental offices may have a dentist's name on the door, but usually, it takes more than just the dentist to handle the tasks that keep the business afloat. Instead, various workers, such as dental assistants, handle tasks from the moment the patients walk through the door till the practice closes for the day and prepares for the next day.
Dental assistant work is in very high demand right now. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists the field's growth rate at 11%, making it a high-demand career in Portland. Becoming a dental assistant is a rewarding and varied career, offering the chance to see the inner workings of a healthcare practice if you have a goal of continuing with your education to participate in some other aspect of the field. If you speak to any dentist who's gone through a hiring shortage, they'll tell you exactly the value of dental assistants. Offices run on the labor of these workers!
Topics: Healthcare Operations, dental assisting, High Demand Careers
Help People Feel at Ease as a Patient Access Specialist
So many important aspects of a doctor's visit begin to solidify when you first walk in the door. Think about the difference between being greeted politely and immediately connected to your provider versus not being noticed and then being haphazardly registered and checked in for your appointment. As a Patient Access Specialist, you get the opportunity to make people feel connected, cared for, and ready for their appointments, all while doing important behind-the-scenes data collection that helps you to continue serving them well during the payment or insurance process.
Maybe you're asking, "What is a patient access specialist, anyway?" Patient access specialists are the workers who first interact with a person coming into a medical clinic or doctor's practice. Their combination of greeting and entering information into the scheduling and documentation databases is one of the vital components of keeping the practice running smoothly. As a Patient Access Specialist, you need a combination of skills to find success in helping patients feel at ease.
Topics: Healthcare Operations, High Demand Careers
The Career Benefits of Radiology for Oral Surgeons
Dentistry has advanced in remarkable ways over the centuries. In just the past few decades alone, safe and frequent radiological scan technology has allowed dentists and orthodontists to understand the human mouth better. The information revealed in these scans helps dentists find potential problems before they are noticeable on the surface of the teeth and before they become a medical crisis or significant source of pain.
Dental assistant work exists in various dentistry contexts, including regular dental practices, emergency dentistry, orthodontics, and oral surgery. While the work varies from one practice to another, there is a need to take x-rays or other imaging scans accurately and safely in most of these contexts.
However, with this additional technology comes additional training for dental assistants who want to be versatile team members in dentistry practice. Understanding this additional training and how it benefits you shows how radiology for oral surgeons' certification can help you advance your career and keep strong job security as you consider future moves within the field.
Topics: Healthcare Operations, High Demand Careers
How Patient Access Specialists Make for Seamless Visits and Returning Patients
While the reception workers in any business can make customers feel comfortable and well-oriented, there are few contexts where they are as vital as in the medical world. Patient access specialists work as the first contact with patients visiting a doctor's office or other healthcare settings.
People often come to the doctor with stress or concerns, and the patient access specialist they encounter shapes their experience, calms them down and helps them feel cared for and supported. If you're looking for a role that impacts people and keeps you busy with new tasks every day, a patient access specialist is a fantastic role that can lead to other industry opportunities.
Topics: Healthcare Operations, High Demand Careers
The Crucial Role of Phlebotomists in Keeping Hospitals Running
Whether a hospital is in the middle of a significant world health event or working with typical patient volumes, the phlebotomists are one of the many sets of personnel that keep them running smoothly. Phlebotomists take and process blood, which is one of the critical sources of information that helps doctors and their teams to do their work. Too little bloodwork severely restricts diagnoses and treatment. When there aren't enough phlebotomists, these delays in bloodwork can impact the entire hospital, making it harder to treat patients in the ways they need most.
Here are just a few ways in which phlebotomists are part of the life's blood of hospitals.
Topics: Healthcare Operations, Phlebotomy