NAs vs no NAs and Quality of Care

[NewEastCoastRN]

Hi everyone. I was wondering what your opinion is on the quality of care provided in a hospital when there are nursing assistants or no nursing assistants. I know there have been many research studies that suggest that the quality of care decreases as more nursing work is done by nursing assistants. However, on my floor we have no nursing assistants, and I find this to be a huge hinderance at times to providing good care. Don't get me wrong, I do not think that I am above emptying bedpans or feeding patients, but when I have 5 patients, all of which are on cardiace monitors, having to do those things can really take up all my time, time that could be used to do professional nurse-level care! An example of this came a couple of weeks ago when I had a quadrapalegic as a patient and I had to feed him all of his meals. I spent approx 2 1/2 hours of my 12-hour shift feeding this man. While I was feeding him his lunch, I had to start a dilt drip on one of my other patients, and instead of being close by, I had to watch his heart monitor and auto BP in the quadrapalegic's room while feeding him. Again, I do not believe that I am above these tasks in any way, but it is frustrating not being able to do a lot of the RN-level tasks that I am trained to do, such as discharge planning. What do you guys think of this?

[Alnamvet]

Hi everyone. I was wondering what your opinion is on the quality of care provided in a hospital when there are nursing assistants or no nursing assistants. I know there have been many research studies that suggest that the quality of care decreases as more nursing work is done by nursing assistants. However, on my floor we have no nursing assistants, and I find this to be a huge hinderance at times to providing good care. Don't get me wrong, I do not think that I am above emptying bedpans or feeding patients, but when I have 5 patients, all of which are on cardiace monitors, having to do those things can really take up all my time, time that could be used to do professional nurse-level care! An example of this came a couple of weeks ago when I had a quadrapalegic as a patient and I had to feed him all of his meals. I spent approx 2 1/2 hours of my 12-hour shift feeding this man. While I was feeding him his lunch, I had to start a dilt drip on one of my other patients, and instead of being close by, I had to watch his heart monitor and auto BP in the quadrapalegic's room while feeding him. Again, I do not believe that I am above these tasks in any way, but it is frustrating not being able to do a lot of the RN-level tasks that I am trained to do, such as discharge planning. What do you guys think of this?

In a Emergency Room, I am of the opinion that the only non- RN's should only be Paramedics, who are highly trained in starting IV's, doing EKG's, interpreting EKG's with reasonable accuracy and informing RN's of their observations, can mix and hang a variety of drips, and calculate appropriate drip rates with accuracy, can do foleys, assist during codes....the training a Paramedic receives is invaluable in a hospital setting...anything less than a EMT-P is just a waste of time and money. There are enough volunteers and kids doing court ordered community service in my ED, that the need for CNA's or whatever title they are adorned with, is null and void.