Neva L. Crogan
Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA 99212, USA
Title: Organizational and patient outcomes after implementation of a new nurse extender staffing model in nursing homes
Biography
Biography: Neva L. Crogan
Abstract
Medication assistants (MA’s) are a legal alternative to whom licensed nurses may safely delegate medication administration for stable residents in non-acute settings. MA’s are certified nursing assistants who have typically completed 100 or more hours of didactic, simulation training and clinical education to safely administer medications, with the exception of those administered by pareneral or enteral routes. Licensed nurses retain the responsibility to assess, diagnose, treat and evaluate clients. The use of MA’s enables licensed nurse to have more time to perform professional roles which require clinical judgment while controlling costs. The purpose of this quality improvement (QI) intervention is to implement a new staffing model that includes the use of MA’s in two local nursing homes and measure organizational and individual level quality indicators at baseline, 3 and 6 months post implementation. This presentation will discuss findings from the QI project to include medication errors, numbers of residents returned to the hospital post admission, call light response time, staff satisfaction, changes in the facility staffing model and its associated costs. Data will be entered into an Excel spreadsheet and imported into SPSS for analysis. Descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation will be used to analyze interval level participant characteristics and responses to survey items. ANOVA and t-tests will be performed to explore the differences in responses based on location and data points. Study findings will be used to refine the staffing model and may lead to a major paridigm shift in how nursing homes are staffed in the United States.