Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA), commonly referred to as Patient Care Assistants or Nurse Assistants are important healthcare professionals in the medical industry. They are well-trained health-care workers who serve as the eyes and ears of the medical team, and act as a coordinator between patients and doctors. Under the direct supervision of registered or licensed practical nurses, they provide nursing care to patients. They work in a variety of healthcare settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, old-age homes, rehab centers, urgent care clinics, and doctors’ offices. They are required to work for irregular hours, be prepared to handle crucial responsibilities on a daily basis, have a compassion, caring attitude, and be physically strong to assist and move patients. Prospective CNAs need high school diploma and a certificate in nursing assistant program and if you are on the fence about becoming a CNA, understanding responsibilities and duties of these professionals will help in taking a decision.
Although primary responsibility of CNAs is to assist patients with their daily living activities, they are saddled with additional duties as well. However, daily tasks depend on the work settings and the rules of the state they are employed in. To get a clear understanding of what the job entails, know the basic responsibilities, and daily duties of CNAs.
Helping patients with daily activities
CNAs are not required to provide advanced medical care to patients since their education, knowledge, and experience are only limited to basic patient care. They are mostly hired to take care of patients’ daily living activities such as grooming, toileting, taking meals and medicines. But these nurses are trained to take care of patients recovering from surgeries, serious injuries, accidents, and other illnesses.
Maintaining patient’s personal hygiene
CNAs are responsible to maintain patient’s personal hygiene such as brushing their teeth, combing hair, shaving, cutting nails, taking bath, and changing clothes. They also have to clean, dress and protect wounds from infections. It’s the duty of these nurses to ensure that patients have good and clean hygiene so that they are on road to recovery soon.
Measuring vital signs
Maintaining patient’s stability by measuring and recording vital signs on the daily basis is the primary responsibility of CNAs. Along with these vital signs, they also need to record patient’s weight, comfort level, urinary output, food and liquid intake every day.
Keeping patient’s room clean
Ensuring that the cleanliness in patient’s room is maintained is one of the fundamental and basic responsibilities of CNAs. They have to clean and sanitize patient’s rooms and common areas, change bed linens or soiled bedsheets and make beds, scrub areas, provide and clean out bedpans regularly as it helps in preventing the spread of infection to other patients or family members and moreover, clean space definitely helps their patients gain a positive attitude.
Helping patients move
CNAs assist in transportation of incapacitated patients to treatment units, operating rooms, or whenever they are to be taken for physiotherapy or diagnosis. They use wheelchairs and stretchers to move patients. They also help bedridden patients change their position to avoid the risk of bedsores, blood clots, and other issues by moving or shifting them periodically.
Listening to patient’s health concerns and reporting supervisors
The important responsibility of CNA is to assist RNs and doctors by reporting patient’s health condition regularly. As CNAs work closely with their patients, they are required to listen to their health issues and problems and communicate the same to the medical team. Also, due to more interaction with patients, they can quickly observe changes in their physical and mental condition and therefore, are able to report updated health information to attending physicians or nurses.
Setting up medical equipment
Under the directions of physicians or RNs, CNAs are responsible for setting up various medical equipment and tools such as oxygen tents, ventilators, bladder scanners, and portable radio-graph equipment. They are also required to sanitize these tools and equipment, and maintain their cleanliness.
Other duties and responsibilities include:-
• Managing patient’s medication and diet under the direction of RNs or doctors, and detecting symptoms that require medical attention
• Maintaining confidentiality of patient’s personal information, providing information related to visiting hours and patient’s status to visitors or callers, scheduling appointments
• Providing emotional support, and explaining medication and treatment procedures to patients and their families
• Preparing patients for operations or surgeries, collecting specimens for laboratory, etc.
Although the duties and responsibilities of CNAs are challenging, but at the same time this career is considered to be incredibly valuable and rewarding, and the employment in this profession is expected to grow by 18% in the next ten years, according to BLS.
