Knowing what CNA skill to perform at the right time is essential to being an effective and efficient Certified Nursing Assistant. Because CNAs serve as direct care givers in the medical setting, knowing how to satisfy patients in terms of health needs and comfort is important as a part of the profession. Here, certain CNA key points are discussed with regards to what nursing assistants should do and should avoid in the workplace.
CNAs or Certified Nursing Assistants work in conjunction with registered nurses. They are responsible for ensuring that the convenience, hygiene and safety of patients are well-established during their entire stay in the medical facility. For this reason, they are usually assigned to offer bedside nursing care in its simplest form. CNAs see to it that patient satisfaction is fully met, making them essential in terms of quality assurance.
Skills learned in training programs serve their purpose in the workplace. Even though CNA skills are basic, they have responding techniques that have related rationales behind them. This is also a factor which makes bedside nursing not just a science, but also an art.
Here are the lists of basic tasks assigned to nursing assistants as a part of their job description:
• Obtaining vital signs
• Transferring patients from bed to wheelchair and vice versa
• Repositioning patients
• Monitoring input and output
• Assisting patients in personal care (eating and bathing)
• Offering complete bed bath
• Assisting patients in toilet needs (use of bedpan)
• Providing catheter care
• Weighing patient
• Replacing soiled bed linens and hospital gowns
• Maintaining patient safety
• Answering call lights of patients
• Offering hair and nail care
• Offering bed shampoo
• Assisting patients during mealtime and offering oral care thereafter
• Applying prosthetics
• Applying elastic stockings on extremities of patients
• Administering enemas and rectal medications
Here on the other hand are some of the procedures which are beyond the job description of nursing assistants:
• Starting a peripheral intravenous line
• Administering medications
• Catheter insertion
• Dusting and cleaning (this still remains a controversy as nursing assistants in some facilities execute these procedures in the workplace)
• Performing wound care
• Transcribing doctor’s orders
• Capillary blood glucose monitoring
• Attaching medical equipments on patients such as mechanical ventilators, cardiac monitors and infusion pumps
• Preparing patients for surgical procedures
• Performing patient discharge teaching
• Providing nursing diagnosis for patient
• Examining patients for delivery
• Counting and regulating intravenous fluids
• Applying devices such as colostomy bags and gravity drains
• Performing debridement of patient’s wounds
