Career Nursing Assistants Network of N. Carolina

Melvin,

We are looking for nursing assistants in nursing homes to participate in
trial research projects to prove that a unique way of scheduling them into
team partnerships will improve the quality and efficiency patient care.

It is a benefit to nursing assistants in that it will enable and empower
nursing assistants to obtain higher pay levels and have more control over
patient care policies. It is a benefit to patients and families in that
they will always know the nursing assistants who are responsible for
patient care (see our weg site article "Who Cares for Nursing Home
Patient?"). It is a benefit to nursing homes in that they will be more
profitable with higher paid nursing assitants who provide more and better
care (a fact that can be proven with trial projects).

The focus of our research is to evaluate these benefits by creating special
seven day a week team partnerships of three nursing assistants for each
team whereby they are scheduled in a manner that two are working and one is
off everyday, whereby each team member spends an equal amount of time
working together for maximum consistency, continuity and cohesiveness in
patient care (see our Current Initiative web site section "Trial Research
Initiative for Nursing Homes"). Another focus of the research is to
explore team formation methods. The most popular method is to pair two
experienced nursing assistants with a new hire to maximize training. Some
other methods to be explored involve pairing two younger nursing assistants
with an older one (giving work opportunities to senior citizens), and
letting nursing assistants themselves design, organize and propose their
own kind of team partnerships.

If this subject matter is of interest to your members, we would like to
discuss it further with your network.

George Ricci
QE Foundation
[email protected]

Follow-ups:

• RE: Looking for Nursing Assistants    dan (1/22/2003 2:28:03 PM)