Are you ready to help lead the way to better health?
A career at New Mexico’s largest laboratory means you’re pivotal to advancing medicine and creating healthier communities. But we’re also dedicated to improving the wellness of our employees. With excellent benefits, a culture of integrity, strong work/life balance, and numerous opportunities for career advancement and professional development, we’re confident you’ll love working at TriCore.
- Robust medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and many supplemental plans
- 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer matching
- Lucrative Paid Time Off (PTO) and nine paid holidays per year
Schedule: Monday-Friday 0800-1300 with weekends, holidays and other shifts as needed
Salary/Hourly: Hourly Position
Job Summary
The Clinical Lab Assistant is able to work independently and with minimal supervision and/or oversight. Successful candidates have the experience and skillset to perform one or more identified modalities. Compensation is dependent on the number of modalities performed. Candidates without experience may be considered for a paid apprenticeship level. Regular in-person attendance during scheduled work hours is essential.
Essential Functions
- Performs duties in a professional and courteous manner.
- Maintains supplies and inventory necessary to perform departmental functions.
- Observe students and/or new staff as needed.
- Exhibit basic problem solving skills to ensure exceptional customer and patient care service levels.
- Responsible for hospital communication responsibilities as assigned, including on-call responsibilities during scheduled hours (cell phone) by location.
- Demonstrates effective telephone and verbal communication skills.
- Actively demonstrates professional judgment when dealing with clients, patients and co-workers.
- Perform clerical functions as needed by the department, including, but not limited to documenting critical communication such as call-ins in the absence of a supervisor.
- Responsible for maintaining levels of confidentiality associated with position and access to personal and confidential information.
- Participate in and maintain coverage levels for on call as needed/required to meet service levels.
- Participate in coverage for holidays, evenings, and weekends as needed or required.
- Basic PC skills.
Minimum Qualifications
Minimum Education:
- H.S. diploma or equivalent.
Preferred:
- PBT (ASCP) or equivalent certification.
- Completion of a relevant Clinical Lab Assistant or comparable program.
Immunization Requirements:
- Prove immunity to Hepatitis B, or be immunized, or sign a waiver refusing Hepatitis immunization.
- Provide documentation of a PPD test conducted not more than 90 days prior to date of hire, or have a PPD test conducted through TriCore.
- In departments/locations with direct patient contact: prove immunity or be eligible to receive rubella, rubeola and varicella immunization.
General Requirements:
- Valid driver's license. Good driving record. Must be insurable by lab insurance carrier as required by location.
- Eligible to work in a health care facility as provided by the New Mexico Caregivers Criminal History Screening Act or other applicable law.
Minimum Experience:
- Candidates with no training or experience may be considered for an apprenticeship.
- Selected Candidates will be placed into CLA Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, or Level 4 based on the number of modalities (listed below) completed on a regular basis. Assigned modalities are determined by the department leadership.
Modalities
- Check-in and Order Entry/Reconciliation - (Modality per system- Clinical, Anatomic, Research, Referral Testing)
- Identifying patient in system
- Reconciling electronic orders
- Manual Entry when necessary
- Insurance/payment when necessary
- General Phlebotomy (ages 10 and above) includes vacutainer, butterfly and syringe collections.
- Special Collections and/or external shipping certification. Special Collections include but are not limited to arterial blood gas, pediatric and infant draws, sweat collection, breath collections, occupational health/drug screen collections, MRSA and Covid collections, therapeutic phlebotomies.
- Assisting provider performed procedures, including but not limited to FNA, Bone Marrow, EBUS, Bronchial lavage.
- Specimen Processing (includes Specimen receipt, specimen sorting, specimen delivery/loading, decanting and retrieval for send out testing and surgical sample triage, Specimen storage and disposal functions)
- Non-conformity investigation/Problem Resolution (examples Problem Desk aka Portal, TLC, NCE responses, client service) includes proper documentation.
- Lab Equipment Maintenance and/or support (superuser), to include chemical and biohazard waste management for non-testing instrumentation (cryostats and stainline)
- Sample Testing (waived to moderate) including appropriate instrument maintenance, including biohazard disposal, and QC.
- Reviews results to see if they are within defined parameters. Identifies and resolves technical specimen problems. Report out results.
- Identifies, researches and resolves specimen, QC, or instrument problems.
- Consistent training and/or assisting in competency assessments of modalities to employee and/or students with completing initial training documentation. This may include N95 FIT Testing.
- Department specific skilled technical assistance:
- BB-Product prep: irradiating units, thaw cryo and plasma, splitting plasma and platelets
- Infectious Disease - Planting patient specimens that includes: Tissue and Bone processing (grinding and cutting), Plate Inoculation, Knowledge of anaerobic versus aerobic incubation requirements
- Genetics and Cytometry – Nucleic acid extraction, cell culture and harvesting, renal transplant kit oversight and patient testing scheduling and monitoring
- Histology and Cytology – Cytology specimen processing, slide preparation and staining, Histology specimen processing, including bone marrow grossing and knowledge of processing for each tissue type.
- TRI Honest Broker
- Department specific clerical or support functions:
- Organization of AP/HP cases and slide distribution
- FFPE Block and slide filing and material retrieval
- Consult Case management (ordering, material retrieval, billing, Client on the Fly, report upload)
- Client Material return
- Unit allocation & issue: cryo, plasma, platelet, bone and tissue
- Skilled Inventory management: (ordering, receiving, monitoring par levels, end of month reconciliations, includes blood supply, reagents, supplies, TriBuy training and competency)