CNA Staffing Shortage

Many facilities across the country are dealing with a shortage of CNAs. In my facility, each of out two units house forty residents. When staffing is at optimum levels, there are six CNAs on each unit during the day, four during the evening, and three on nights. We seldom see that kind of staffing, however. For a number of reasons, low pay scale being on of them, CNAs leave their jobs at the facility to move on, leaving open positions.

More often that not, we operate at minimum staffing of four CNAs per unit on days. (Under minimum staffing, a CNA is responsible for ten residents, including one or more baths.) The table below shows what our patient ratios are on the day shift on my unit.

CNAs	Residents	Baths	Time Per Resident
6	7	1	19.3 minutes
5	8	1	16.9 minutes
4	10	1-2	13.5 minutes

With the number of things the CNA is required to do, 13.5 minutes is just not enough time to spend with a resident. In that 13.5 minutes, we are expected to assemble the clothing, wash the resident, perform range of motion, apply cremes, transfer the resident to his/her chair (some have to ambulated), make the resident's bed, and straighten the room, putting away clean laundry and removing the soiled laundry to another location on the unit.

Our facility has instituted a CNA Task Force to try to come up with some ways to alleviate the stress on the staff, as well as find ways to keep the staff we have. If you have any ideas to offer, send them to me by clicking on the Email button below.

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