The Certified Nursing Assistant is an employee trained to provide personal care and services to the terminally ill to augment the care given by family members. She/he functions under the direction, instruction and supervision of the Nurse and/or the Nurse Supervisor.
Job Responsibilities
- Perform personal care activities as written in the assignment, such as helping the patient maintain good personal hygiene.
- Assist in maintaining a safe and healthy environment.
- Plan and prepare nutritious meals; grocery shop when instructed by the nurse; assist in feeding and in measuring and preparing special diets.
- Assist the patient in ambulation and with the use of a walker or wheelchair as taught and supervised by the nurse.
- Assist with treatments ordered by the physician, such as changing a colostomy bag, reinforcing a dressing, using a prescribed ice cap or collar, performing simple urine tests for sugar, acetone or albumin, measuring intake and output, and assist with self‑administered medications.
- Assist with prescribed range of motion exercises taught by the nurse or physical therapist.
- Encourage the patient to become as independent as possible according to the interdisciplinary care plan.
- Attempt to promote mental alertness through involvement in activities of interest.
Other Responsibilities
- Provide simple emotional and psychological support to the patient and household members.
- Report any change in the patient’s mental or physical condition or home situation to the Renaissance Hospice Nurse and the interdisciplinary team.
- Teach basic care to the primary caregiver.
- Practice infection control measures per OSHA standards.
- Record temperature, pulse and respiration.
- Keep accurate records of the patient’s health‑care activities on interdisciplinary charts.
- Evaluate patient/family needs and assist in preparing and executing the interdisciplinary plan of care.
- Complete a minimum of 12 hours of in‑services per year.
- Participate in at least one quality‑improvement activity yearly.
The Home Health Aide May Not
- Change sterile dressings.
- Irrigate body cavities (such as an enema).
- Irrigate a colostomy or wound.
- Perform a gastric lavage or gavage.
- Catheterize a patient.
- Administer medications except those that are self‑administered.
- Apply heat by any method.
- Care for a tracheotomy tube.
- Suction a patient.
- Perform any personal health service not included in the patient care plan by the nurse.
Direction Received
- Report directly to the Sunrise Health Services Nurse and/or the Sunrise Health Services Nurse Supervisor.
- Receive clinical direction from the patient’s primary nurse.