NIMAA Gains National Accreditation

For too long at CHC, we’ve interviewed medical assistant candidates who have not been adequately trained to be effective for our team-based model of care - requiring us to retrain them for the demands of working in complicated primary care systems. Additionally, they come away from many of the institutions that train them with an unconscionable level of indebtedness.

To address these issues, CHC working with Salud Family Health Center in Colorado created the National Institute for Medical Assistant Advancement (NIMAA). The goal was to develop a program that would be affordable and would better prepare new medical assistants for careers in primary care. The NIMAA model embeds students in a primary care practice during their entire educational training, which allows students to learn in a primary care setting.

We believe MA’s should be key players in health care teams and be well-positioned to climb the ladder as health care professionals. As we have built this program, many graduates have taken up key roles in community health centers.

Thanks to the incredible efforts of NIMAA staff, the program has now achieved national accreditation status from The Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools. This accreditation will allow us to expand NIMAA’s programs so that more people can become medical assistants in primary care settings.