Building a Staff Development Program for Nursing Assistants in Long-Term Care

Abstract

Nursing assistant (NA) turnover was 88.9% for four long-term care facilities combined within the project organization. A staff development program was designed for NAs across all four facilities within the organization to reduce turnover. The staff development program included concepts of empowerment and discipline-specific education tailored to meet the organization's needs. The project team worked with facility leadership for 20 weeks to implement the program's NA meetings and educational modules in each facility, where 8.5 hours of in-service credit were offered and basic NA skills were validated. NA participation in program initiatives ranged between 85% to 88% per facility. Outcome measurements were obtained from the organization's payroll data and survey of NAs. Project findings included a 63.25% decrease in turnover, a 38.83% increase in retention, and an increase in job satisfaction by 37.14%. Recommendations for improvement include expanding empowerment concepts to include increased NA involvement in facility operations and specialized education to expand NA roles in long-term care.