What does a CNA do?
CNAs work in a variety of healthcare settings, from hospitals to nursing homes to assisted living facilities. Basically, anywhere nurses need assistance. While on the job, nursing assistants should be ready to:
- Care For Patients: CNAs are often asked to care for patients as they recover which might include personal hygiene and repositioning bedridden patients. Depending on the setting, these patients could be elderly, disabled, anesthetized, or homebound. Nursing assistants should be ready to be available whenever a client needs them, including sometimes working night, weekend, and holiday shifts.
- Gather and Report Information: One of the most important duties of nursing assistants is to gather and pass along vital medical information to their supervisors. This might include blood tests, patient histories, and vital signs. Nurses then use this information to make important decisions about the patient’s care.
- Keep Good Records: Maintaining good records is vital in keeping the medical complex running efficiently. While this isn’t a CNA’s primary function, logging comprehensive patient histories and developing good relationships with billing and coding is crucial to a good job performance.
