Clinical and Non-clinical Profession

The main difference between clinical and non-clinical jobs is pretty simple. Simply because you work in a clinic or healthcare facility doesn’t suggest that your function is “clinical”. If you take care of patients or supply direct patient care of any type, in which particular case your job is considered as “clinical.” Types of clinical functions in healthcare are:

  • Physician (ER doctors, hospitalists, surgeons)
  • Nurse (CRNA, LPN/LVN, RN, CNS)
  • Pharmacists
  • Medical Lab Technologist
  • Therapist (Physical Therapist, Radiation Therapist)
  • Techs (Ultrasound Tech, Radiology Tech, Surgical Tech)
  • Medical Assistants
  • Dietician

Non-clinical roles are the ones that do not offer any sort of medical attention, or testing. It consist of medical billing and coders, receptionists, hospital executives, transcriptionists, and anyone who works as a support staff at a hospital such as Human Resources, IT, administrative assistants, etc. Some non-clinical workers do interact with patients, but don’t essentially offer medical care. There are plenty of additional non-clinical roles in the health care industry like pharmaceutical reps, medical gadget sales, medical recruiters, biomedical engineers, biostatisticians, case workers and patient advocates. Other examples of non-clinical hospital jobs:

  • Case manager / Social Worker
  • Human Resources & Recruiting
  • Accountants
  • Executives
  • Administrative Assistants
  • Information Technology

If you appreciate dealing with people and do patient care, working in a hospital may very well be appealing to you. A typical hospital has countless workers, along with patients coming in and out on a daily basis, it brings new challenges. Also, because healthcare is really a growing industry, hospital jobs are comparatively secure when compared with corporations which may be more unstable occasionally.

Paperless Patient Care

Most people reading this probably grew up in an age of paper medical care details, hand-written medications, and faxed or sent by mail test results. A common sight at many physicians’ office visit was a wall of patient files containing just this kind of details, all alphabetized and marked with little colored tabs. However, to younger visitors and what will certainly be the case for your children, this program of handling your medical care information will look like it belongs in a museum. In a world where you can do everything from book, to pay your takes and even call a cab online, the idea of depending on document records to arrange important elements of your medical care and also one of the biggest sectors in the United States seems ancient.

patient_careFor decades now, medical care service suppliers have discussed the move from paper-based medical care information. Today, electronic medical care record techniques are finally becoming more popular. This is a pattern that has been growing over the past 10 years but that has significantly extended since 2009, when President Obama released the “Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act”, an incentive program to motivate medical care centers and patient care suppliers to look at digital medical care information. To date, the stimulation bundle has provided immeasurable dollars to over one hundred thousand qualified medical care centers and qualified patient care suppliers  who have confirmed adopting, called “meaningful use,” of qualified EHR technology. Improvement is being made, for example, a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the number of medical care centers using some kind of EMR has tripled in the last three years, bringing the total utilization up to 44 percent of US medical care centers.

The conversion away from paper-based methods to digital medical care information, however, has not been easy, or quick. Part of the problem has less to do with technology and more to do with culture. Applying an EMR program means that patient care suppliers and other medical center staff have to go about their work in a different way than in a paper-based environment. Applying an EMR invariably has an effect on clinical process since a new part is being added between the patient and doctor and how the doctor is documenting the individual’s information and developing a plan of proper care.