What are soft skills?

Personal characteristics that enhance interactions, performance, and success are soft skills. These behaviors are less concrete and difficult to observe and evaluate. Soft skills are needed for any job title you may have whether it be retail, food services, or in this case in health care. These soft skills utilize various behaviors to interact and socialize with others. Some examples of these skills include attitudes, optimism, people skills, work ethic, reliability, kindness, empathy, and many others. If soft skills are so essential, then why is it that “93% of students entering the work force do not have soft skills adequately developed for their role.” (NHA) To answer this question we look at the shifts in focus on education. Unfortunately face to face interaction has declined with the age of millennial's and the Gen Z population, making personal interactions much less likely today. Due to the quick growth of social media and the internet, people are spending more time active online rather than spending that time in person with someone. If you lack the experience it can be hard to teach and learn these soft skills.

The importance of soft skills in management is crucial especially seeing as how management is not only involved in the hiring process, but they also must have the soft skills needed to hold an interview with a potential new hire. Management must know what to look for and how to determine the soft skills applied by the applicant. One of the most important soft skills that management looks for in an applicant is reliability. Is the applicant on time, does the applicant have a reliable source of transportation to work, past employment history, is the applicant knowledgeable about the position and what the job title expects of them, are they competent in all aspects of the job, and are they credentialed/have all certifications required. These questions can help determine the reliability of the applicant. This soft skill is important to look for by management to determine because an unreliable applicant could disrupt the flow of the office. Disrupting the flow can lead to late appointments, a decline in patient satisfaction, negative cash flow within the practice, errors due to rushing to keep up with patients, and more. For example, a new hire calls out for 2 out of 4 of her scheduled shifts because she does not have a ride to work. On the two days she calls out the provider she was assigned too must distribute their patients among the staff members available in the office, making a heavier workload for those working that day. This leads to over worked staff, which can decrease job satisfaction, be stressful on the providers, and lead to further complications in the office.

One of the most important soft skills involved in patient care is empathy when quality care is given to the patient. This includes hard skills, medication reconciliation, reason for visit, and us as the medical assistant. Empathy is the ability to understand and share feelings with the patient. In giving quality care to a patient, empathy is important to remember and use every day. It is unlikely that the patient you see is going to be visiting for the same reason as the next. Using empathy helps build a trusted relationship with the patient. It lets the patient know that you are listening to them and is reassures them that you are there to help and do no harm. In order to successfully accomplish hard skills, we need to be able to effectively and respectfully communicate and explain the procedure to the patient. We need to make the patient as comfortable as possible and allow them to ask questions. We need to accurately document information as well as accurately take the measurement's required (weight, height, temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiration's, pain, ext.). By doing a medication reconciliation we are making sure the patient is taking their medication correctly, we find out which medications have been stopped or are being continued as well as new medications added. By doing this we establish safety in medication treatments.

One of the most important soft skills needed by a team member is the ability to work as a team. In any job you will be working with people, but in this case, we need to be able to effectively communicate information and work in a team environment. For the flow of the office to be efficient and effective the Medical assistants must work together to achieve overall success. Every MA has a responsibility in the office. Some check in and check out patient’s, while others run clinical aspects including cleaning and sanitizing the rooms, bringing patients to take vitals and start the initial intake for patients. The ability to correctly pass off information about a patient, correctly document information, and keep up with appointment times are very important and are difficult to achieve if team members do not easily work together. For example, one MA called out so the three in the office must split up the responsibilities among them. With one less person it makes a heavy workflow and more shared responsibilities. These MA’s must work together to provide effective, efficient care to patients in a timely manner. The importance of teamwork is essential for the team members overall success as a Medical assistant. Being able to rely on your team member is a strong factor in the workplace that builds trust among staff.

Overall soft skills are one of the most important skills to learn in order to achieve overall success in the workplace. These skills are hard to teach and hard to learn if not already learned by the individual. These skills are important and must be obtained in order to achieve success in the workplace.