About Health Unit Coordinator

Learn medical terminology and train to transcribe physician orders, understand medication orders, communicate, and assist medical professionals in a variety of ways

The Health Unit Coordinator Program is a credit course. By studying to be a Health Unit Coordinator, you will learn medical terminology by studying prefixes, suffixes, and word roots as well as medical abbreviations, and be introduced to body structures and functions. During the course, you will complete 20 hours of on-the-job training at a local hospital which provides valuable experience in a working environment.

Explore Potential Careers

Health unit coordinators work in hospitals, nursing homes, or other health facilities performing tasks that support patients, physicians, nursing staff, and other departments. They help to keep the facility organized and coordinate the communication between patients and medical staff.

As a coordinator, you may greet and check-in patients, schedule appointments and/or procedures, and perform clerical duties. Other days you might compile patients' charts, transcribe physicians' orders, and assist with birth or death certificates. Much of your work is performed under the supervision of registered physicians or nurses. Other duties may include ordering medical records, ordering supplies, and preparing forms for admission and discharge of patients.

Program Information 

There are no pre requisites for this non-credit program. 

Students are responsible for the following placement requirements:

Current contracts with Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH):

  1. PPD skin test results OR chest x-ray report for a positive PPD OR a negative Quantiferon-Gold TB test within 6 months
  2. Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) vaccinations OR serologic evidence of positive titers
  3. Varicella vaccination OR serologic evidence of positive titer
  4. Hepatitis B vaccinations OR serologic evidence of positive titers

Current contracts with Laguna Honda Hospital:

  1. Proof of medical insurance (copy of insurance card)
  2. PPD skin test results OR chest x-ray report for a positive PPD OR a negative Quantiferon-Gold TB test within 6 months
  3. Tetanus-Diptheria-Pertussis (Tdap) vaccination within the last 10 years
  4. MMR vaccinations OR serologic evidence of positive titers
  5. Poliomyelitis (IPV) vaccination ONLY if recent travel to Asia/Africa OR documentation of childhood vaccination
  6. Hepatitis B vaccinations or serologic evidence of positive titers
  7. Physical examination within 6 months

Students must also get a seasonal flu shot (October through March) and an H1N1 shot before they can intern at SFGH.