Teamwork for Nursing and Nursing Assistants, how can I help?

[dreamingoftheocean]

How do I get the nurses and nurse aides to be a better team? In general, I think we have an awesome NA and RN group on my med/surg floor. Unfortunately, it recently came to my attention that the some of the NA are fed up.

I think it might just be a few RN who aren't the best at teamwork, a few new and very caring wanting to help RN who are overwhelmed and might not help out as much as the seasoned nurses, and we did just let go an nurse aide who was a huge issue for a few months so maybe we leaned on the good aides more being burned out on a nurse aide who didn't help at all.

How do I get things to improve? How do I keep from offending RN and/or NA? Need advice of tried and true methods!!!

[SlickSouthpaw]

Maybe check on each group's attitudes towards the others? In separate meetings, of course. As an aid, I struggled to work with some the RNs because they believed that I "was just a tech" and would get pissed at me for not turning in things on their time schedule (nevermind that we were all understaffed). I learned which nurses actually cared about teamwork and which were more likely to be dismissive based on license levels.

....it took a few nurses a while, but eventually they got the idea that a little appreciation & education on workload goes a long way towards patient care, even if we're both overstretched in workload.

[cdsavannah59, CNA]

Team work comes from respect for those you work for, understanding when they are busy or not available to help you. If you treat someone on the team like they are your servant instead of a team member, the servant eventually decides the job ain't worth the pay.

[slilly]

For me all my night nurses and some day nurses always ask when they can help me out. Otherwise it's me and the other na helping each other out cause we know when our nurses are busy. But in the end everything is done by the end of the shift and everyone is happy.

[Valcorie34, BSN, MSN, RN]

I think it is a matter of good communication. It seems at many facilities, Nurses talk down to CNA's or CNA's make judgements about nurses. Good teams have good communication between them. Good verbalization of responsibilities and expectations by nurses. CNA's need to recognize their mistakes if and when they make them, They need to have good teamwork skills amongst each other and both groups need to respectful of the duties of the other. Both are hard jobs, with never enough time in a shift. It is just frustrating when they don't work well together since they are the most important people to a patient.

[NursePJ2015]

Respect for each other! Thanking, teaching and encouraging the CNA/MAs makes a huge difference!