Certified Nursing Assistant

In the United States, Certified Nursing Assistants or Certified Nurse Assistants (CNAs) provide personal care to residents or patients under the supervision of a Registered Nurse (RN) or Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN).

Legal regulation

In recent years there has been a movement to bring nurse assistants under some type of regulatory control. In today's acute care settings with a focus on making a profit nurse assistants can be inadequate for the type of work that is needed of non-nurse personnel. Some states have implemented, through their Nursing Boards, programs which provide extensive education to nurse assistants in advanced procedures beyond those traditionally assigned to the nurse assistant. These personnel are referred to by different titles: Patient Care Technician, Advanced Unlicensed (referring to non-nurse) Assistant, CNA 2. The important difference between these personnel and traditional nurse assistants is the oversight from a licensing board which allows them to legally perform tasks such as catheter insertion, phlebotomy, tube feedings. and others.

Related Topics:
Patient Care Technician - Licensing board - Catheter - Phlebotomy - Tube feeding

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~