Nursing Assistant Lead Role: Empowerment, Engagement, and Enhancement (TOP-SCORING POSTER)

Purpose: SHA (senior hospital assistant) is the working title for nursing assistant at UCI Health. The SHA lead role was created on our unit to EMPOWER the nursing assistants, ENGAGE them in unit's activities, and ENHANCE overall patient outcome and staff satisfaction.

Description: Every shift will have one designated lead SHA, who coordinates break coverages, reviews CHG bath completion and documentation, reviews belonging inventory, and performs environment round with charge nurse. The role is being assigned by rotation each shift. The expectation of the lead SHA is clearly stated in unit practice council meeting minutes and reinforced by charge nurses and manager/supervisor at the beginning. Epic view is being individualized to provide efficient audit tool for the lead SHA. The off-going and oncoming lead SHAs briefly hand off between shifts. Recognitions and issues are being acknowledged at the real time. The SHA representative reports out every month at the unit practice council meeting. We celebrate Certified Nursing Assistant Week as well.

Evaluation/outcome: The lead SHA role has shown significant impact on our unit. Communication between nurses and aides is improving with better understanding of each discipline's responsibility and accountability. Lead SHA role elevates the nursing assistants and emphasizes their contribution to nursing care quality of our unit. In FY20, our CHG compliance was only 79%; FY21 we increased to 84.5%. We had a reportable HAPI in FY20 and none in FY21. We are on the sixth quarter with no CAUTI. Our hand hygiene compliance increased from 95% to 97% in one year. Our Gallup employee engagement survey in 2021 had 5% more participation rate and ranking improved from 61st to 63rd . FY20, unit only met incentive goal at target level, and FY21 we were at outstanding.

Evidence-based references
1. Swann, R., 2018. The Effect of Training and Recognition on Nursing Assistant Retention in Acute Care Settings. Retrieved from digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu