Medical office assistants

So-called practice employees or practice assistants need a special professional profile in the ophthalmological practice, which is not currently covered by any training centre.

In many practices, therefore, very different professional groups are also employed part-time: Orthoptists, opticians, medical practice assistants, medical secretaries. Nevertheless, we still have to train practically all of these employees in a lot of things and train them for the special conditions in our practices.

All of the above has motivated us to initiate a project which will regulate the occupational profile and required training course for ophthalmology assistants.

CONCEPT

A training module is envisaged, which will be developed in cooperation with the doctor's assistant schools and the association (SVA). Internships are planned for this purpose, which these students can then do in our practices. It enables us to carry out the training, which we have to do anyway, on better terms. It also enables us to provide concrete regulation and support for training companies/practices. At the same time, we have a good and uniform training and, over time, a market with a well-trained and verifiable workforce. However, the federal and many cantonal laws must be taken into account. We do not have to reinvent the job description, but we have to compare it with international models and specifications. Conceptual preparation with authorities, schools and associations takes a lot of time. We hope to be able to start a first trial run by 2019.

Training Objective

The aim is also to make the job description as attractive as possible and to make the training as sustainable as possible so that, firstly, an internal career in ophthalmology is possible and, secondly, the migration rate can be kept low.

The project is greatly supported by Mediconsult AG, Novartis Pharma Schweiz AG, Carl Zeiss AG, Bayer Schweiz AG