Top 12 Health Care Specialist Skills to Put on Your Resume
In today's competitive healthcare industry, standing out as a candidate takes more than schooling and a job history. Showcasing a sharp mix of specialized skills on your resume can lift your chances of getting noticed by hiring teams and landing the role you want.
Health Care Specialist Skills
- EMR (Electronic Medical Records)
- CPR Certified
- HIPAA Compliance
- Patient Assessment
- Phlebotomy
- EKG Interpretation
- Epic Systems
- Cerner
- Medical Coding (ICD-10)
- Telehealth Proficiency
- Wound Care
- ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support)
1. EMR (Electronic Medical Records)
EMR (Electronic Medical Records) is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. It holds the medical and treatment history of patients within a single practice and is accessible to authorized healthcare professionals for diagnosis and care.
Why It's Important
EMRs help clinicians deliver safer, faster care by keeping information accurate, current, and available at the point of need. Better documentation, cleaner handoffs, and tighter coordination across teams all ride on well-managed records.
How to Improve EMR (Electronic Medical Records) Skills
Improvements hinge on clean data, smooth exchange, and humane workflows. A few high-impact moves:
Build for interoperability: Enable standardized data exchange (e.g., FHIR, USCDI). Make sharing with labs, pharmacies, and external providers routine, not heroic.
Harden security: Enforce role-based access, multifactor authentication, encryption, and audit trails. Run periodic risk assessments and fix gaps quickly.
Simplify the experience: Cut clicks. Use templates, order sets, smart phrases, and clinical decision support tuned to real workflows.
Train continuously: Short refreshers, tip sheets, super-user support. New features land often—help people adopt them.
Leverage analytics: Use dashboards and alerts to surface gaps in care, reduce duplicate testing, and monitor outcomes.
Engage patients: Strengthen portals, secure messaging, and self-scheduling; share visit summaries and results promptly.
Dial in these areas and EMRs stop being hurdles. They start pulling their weight for both care and operations.
How to Display EMR (Electronic Medical Records) Skills on Your Resume
2. CPR Certified
CPR Certified indicates you completed training and testing in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation. You can respond during cardiac or respiratory emergencies with lifesaving actions.
Why It's Important
When seconds vanish, CPR saves lives. Certification proves you can step in fast, work with a team, and push survival odds higher.
How to Improve CPR Certified Skills
Keep skills sharp and current. Short, steady upkeep beats cramming.
Refresh the science: Review updates from recognized organizations such as the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross.
Advance your level: Add courses like Basic Life Support refreshers and ACLS when relevant to your role.
Practice hands-on: Join simulation labs and mock codes to build muscle memory and teamwork.
Renew on time: Set reminders well before expiration so you never lapse.
Teach to learn: Assist or instruct classes; explaining cements mastery.
Use microlearning: Short videos, quizzes, and scenario drills between renewals.
Prepared, practiced, ready—that’s the target.
How to Display CPR Certified Skills on Your Resume
3. HIPAA Compliance
HIPAA Compliance means safeguarding protected health information (PHI) through privacy, security, and breach-notification standards. It touches every chart, message, and database you handle.
Why It's Important
Trust is fragile. Compliance protects patients, prevents penalties, and preserves the reputation of both clinicians and organizations.
How to Improve HIPAA Compliance Skills
Run risk assessments: Identify threats to PHI, prioritize fixes, and track remediation.
Train everyone: Role-based education for staff, with frequent refreshers and phishing drills.
Control access: Least-privilege permissions, MFA, automatic logoff, and regular access reviews.
Secure data: Encrypt at rest and in transit; maintain strong key management and backups.
Plan for incidents: Define breach response steps, notification timelines, and post-incident reviews.
Update policies: Keep procedures current, documented, and easy to find.
Honor patient rights: Ensure processes for access, amendments, and disclosure accounting are swift and consistent.
Good security is a habit, not a project. Keep iterating.
How to Display HIPAA Compliance Skills on Your Resume
4. Patient Assessment
Patient assessment is a structured approach to gather health histories, examine physical and psychological status, and identify risks—fuel for accurate diagnoses and well-fitted care plans.
Why It's Important
Without a solid assessment, everything downstream wobbles. With it, care gets focused, timely, and safer.
How to Improve Patient Assessment Skills
Ask better questions: Use open-ended prompts and reflective listening. Let patients tell their story.
See what’s unsaid: Note nonverbal cues, affect, functional status, and environmental context.
Use your tools: Document thoroughly in EHRs; pull in decision support and standardized screening instruments.
Keep learning: Refresh on exam techniques, red flags, and differential diagnosis building through continuing education.
Lead with empathy: Trust grows when patients feel heard—better information follows.
Better inputs, better care. Simple, not easy.
How to Display Patient Assessment Skills on Your Resume
5. Phlebotomy
Phlebotomy is the collection of blood via venipuncture or capillary sampling for testing, treatment, or donation.
Why It's Important
Good specimens drive good results. Testing, monitoring, and clinical decisions rely on safe, accurate blood collection.
How to Improve Phlebotomy Skills
Repetition with feedback: Practice on simulators and under supervision; focus on vein selection, angle, and stability.
Stay current on safety: Follow infection control and exposure protocols; keep PPE and sharps practices tight.
Communicate calmly: Reduce anxiety with clear explanations and reassurance; position and support the limb well.
Mind equipment and hygiene: Check expiry dates, integrity of needles and tubes, and maintain strict aseptic technique.
Debrief misses: Review unsuccessful attempts and adjust technique or site selection.
Peer exchange: Learn tips from experienced collectors and participate in professional communities.
Precision, gentleness, and vigilance—your daily trio.
How to Display Phlebotomy Skills on Your Resume
6. EKG Interpretation
EKG interpretation reads the heart’s electrical story—rate, rhythm, intervals, axis, and waveform changes—to diagnose arrhythmias, ischemia, electrolyte shifts, and more.
Why It's Important
Early recognition of cardiac trouble changes outcomes. Fast, accurate reads guide urgent therapy.
How to Improve EKG Interpretation Skills
Master the basics: Cardiac electrophysiology, lead placement, normal intervals, and patterns first.
Use a checklist: Rate, rhythm, axis, intervals, hypertrophy, ischemia—same order every time.
Practice daily: Review tracings with known diagnoses; compare your read to expert interpretations.
Learn from cases: Study real clinical scenarios to connect EKG patterns with management.
Get feedback: Discuss challenging strips with cardiology or senior clinicians.
Simulate emergencies: Run mock codes where rapid EKG decisions matter.
Reps build speed; structure builds accuracy.
How to Display EKG Interpretation Skills on Your Resume
7. Epic Systems
Epic Systems provides comprehensive electronic health record software that supports clinical, revenue cycle, and operational workflows across care settings.
Why It's Important
Epic’s integrated tools help clinicians coordinate care, surface insights from data, and reduce friction across departments and sites.
How to Improve Epic Systems Skills
Role-based training: Complete modules tailored to your job; become the local go-to for frequent tasks.
Optimize workflows: Customize templates, order sets, smart tools, and in-basket rules to cut noise and clicks.
Use reporting: Build or request dashboards that track quality measures, panel gaps, and throughput.
Integrate smartly: Coordinate with IT on device and app integrations to streamline documentation and data flow.
Stay updated: Review release notes and participate in user groups to adopt new features promptly.
Close the loop: Capture user feedback and escalate pain points for build changes.
Small tweaks compound into big time savings.
How to Display Epic Systems Skills on Your Resume
8. Cerner
Cerner, now part of Oracle Health, delivers EHR and health IT solutions that support documentation, ordering, interoperability, and analytics.
Why It's Important
These systems help clinicians document efficiently, coordinate across teams, and maintain accurate data from admission to discharge and beyond.
How to Improve Cerner Skills
Use the full toolkit: Explore order sets, PowerForms, Quick Orders, and messaging features relevant to your role.
Customize thoughtfully: Tailor views, filters, and favorites; streamline handoffs and standardize note structures.
Train and retrain: Onboard thoroughly and revisit new features after upgrades; lean on super-users.
Engage the community: Participate in user forums and governance to share tips and surface improvement requests.
Efficiency rises when the system matches the way your team actually works.
How to Display Cerner Skills on Your Resume
9. Medical Coding (ICD-10)
Medical coding maps conditions and procedures to standardized codes. In the U.S., that typically means ICD-10-CM for diagnoses and ICD-10-PCS for inpatient procedures.
Why It's Important
Clear coding supports accurate documentation, quality tracking, research, and clean claims—less back-and-forth, better reimbursement, stronger data.
How to Improve Medical Coding (ICD-10) Skills
Track annual updates: Review new, revised, and deleted codes each fiscal year and adjust templates accordingly.
Train regularly: Take refreshers and scenario-based workshops; practice with real-world case studies.
Use technology: Consider CAC/NLP tools to suggest codes, then validate with clinical judgment.
Audit and peer review: Spot trends in denials, correct root causes, and share lessons broadly.
Tighten documentation: Encourage specificity—laterality, acuity, stage, and complications—so codes can be precise.
Close the payer loop: Review remittance advice to understand denials and refine coding patterns.
Specificity is your friend. Vague notes lead to vague codes.
How to Display Medical Coding (ICD-10) Skills on Your Resume
10. Telehealth Proficiency
Telehealth proficiency is the ability to deliver safe, effective remote care using secure audio/video platforms, structured virtual exams, and solid documentation practices.
Why It's Important
Access improves. No-shows drop. Continuity holds steady when patients can connect from anywhere.
How to Improve Telehealth Proficiency Skills
Know your platform: Test devices, connectivity, and peripherals; set up backups for audio or video failure.
Communicate for the screen: Speak clearly, confirm understanding, and use teach-back; guide patients through self-exam steps when appropriate.
Protect privacy: Use HIPAA-compliant tools, verify identity, confirm location, and document consent.
Standardize workflows: Triage criteria, pre-visit questionnaires, vitals capture, e-prescribing, and follow-up planning.
Stay policy-aware: Monitor licensure, prescribing, and reimbursement rules in your jurisdictions.
When the tech fades into the background, the care shines.
How to Display Telehealth Proficiency Skills on Your Resume
11. Wound Care
Wound care covers evaluation and treatment of acute and chronic wounds—cleaning, debridement, dressings, infection control, advanced therapies, and close monitoring.
Why It's Important
Good wound care prevents infection, speeds closure, limits complications, and improves quality of life.
How to Improve Wound Care Skills
Keep up with evidence: Follow guidance from groups such as WOCN and the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel (NPIAP).
Assess thoroughly: Track size, depth, tissue type, exudate, odor, pain, and surrounding skin; reassess on a schedule.
Center on the patient: Factor in nutrition, mobility, vascular status, glycemic control, and social supports.
Control infection: Apply aseptic technique, appropriate antimicrobials, and timely culture/biopsy when indicated.
Balance moisture: Choose dressings that maintain a moist healing environment without maceration.
Support nutrition: Emphasize protein, hydration, and key vitamins/minerals essential for healing.
Manage pain: Combine pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic methods aligned with current pain-management guidance.
Educate consistently: Teach patients and caregivers techniques, red flags, and follow-up plans.
Use technology wisely: Employ imaging apps and telehealth to document progress and consult specialists.
Collaborate: Coordinate with surgery, vascular, endocrinology, rehab, and nutrition for complex wounds.
Healing is a team sport—and a meticulous one.
How to Display Wound Care Skills on Your Resume
12. ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support)
ACLS bundles algorithms, airway management, rhythm recognition, medications, and team dynamics to treat cardiac arrest and other cardiovascular emergencies.
Why It's Important
In the heat of a code, training takes over. ACLS equips clinicians to act decisively and improve survival.
How to Improve ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support) Skills
Follow current guidance: Review updates and focused changes regularly so your mental models stay fresh.
Simulate often: Practice megacode scenarios, role-switching, and closed-loop communication.
Blend online and hands-on: Use e-learning for knowledge and in-person sessions for rhythm recognition and defibrillation practice.
Workshop real cases: Debrief recent events to connect protocols with bedside realities.
Seek feedback: After drills or real codes, capture what worked, what didn’t, and what to change next time.
Maintain fitness: High-quality compressions are demanding; stamina matters.
Consistency, clarity, and calm under pressure—built through repetition.
How to Display ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support) Skills on Your Resume
