CNA Exam with Promissor

25 minutes is actually a lot longer than it sounds. As far as your question, "What helped you get your skills done fast without making mistakes?", I'd say being well prepared.

Keep in mind that hand washing is always one, and MOST can be done rather quickly.

Let's say you get
1)handwashing (20-30secs counting turning on facet drying etc)
2)Temperature
3)Pulse
4)Respiration (TP&R can all be done within 5 minutes)
5)Modified Bed Bath (Let's say you haven't praticed and it takes you 15 minutes...you STILL will have
4 1/2 minutes left!!!)

Let's say you get
1)Hand washing (20-30 minutes..see above).
2)B/P (1-2 minutes...DON'T forget to write down your measurement)
3)pulse (1 minute...Don't forget to write down your measurement)
4)measure urine output (1 minute IF your slow or unsure of yourself...AGAIN WRITE down measurement)
5) dress affected arm (5 minutes tops...your done in UNDER 10 minutes)

The longest skill might be makeing an occupied bed or modified bed bath, but I do not know that they would give you both of these at the same time. If they do, with practice beforehand, I believe that you will find that you can complete these in about 5 minutes each. Good luck to you on the test and remember practice, practice, practice. Oh yea, and WRITE down any measurements that you need to...Temp, pulse, respirations, b/p, urine, etc....just saying 98.6 is not good enough for the test. You must RECORD it. Patient safety is a priority, so bed lowered and locked, call light WITHIN REACH of the PATIENT when you are finished!! Patient privacy always...knock before you enter and do not expose body parts if you do not have to (ie: keep pt covered when doing your bed bath. Only expose the arm that you are going to wash.). Once again good luck and I am sure you will be fine.

Sincerely,
Jay

I guess you could think of it like this. If you got handwashing and one measurement you would have about 2 minutes gone and 23 minutes left to do 3 more skills. That is about 8 minutes a skill. I'd say it was plenty of time. I have heard of people getting multiple measurements, so I don't know if that is a rule.

IF you get

1) hand washing (20-30 seconds)
2) measure urine output (1 minute)
3) modified bath (lets say 6 minutes, but remember it's just a face and one arm)
4) make occupied bed (5 minutes tops, the person playing the patient will probably roll over for you in my experience, a little more cooperative than a real patient)
5) dress an affected arm (breath out at this point because you still have 12 minutes, but this should only take you 3-5 minutes, like I said the "patient" is normally pretty cooperative.)