Professional Boundaries

In this article, I want to present a concept that should be well understood by all CNA’s. Here, we’re going to discuss what can happen when we become overly attached to a resident, or their family and the implications this has upon the facility.

One of the better changes for some LTC facilities is consistent staffing. However, this staffing model has created some unintended consequences.

CNA’s develop long term relationships with those we are charged to care for. We grow to love them and will do all the little “extras” for them. Usually this doesn’t present a problem for anyone. But there are times when our relationships become unhealthy- for us, for the resident, for the other residents we’re assigned to; to our peers and to the facility we work for.

Over Attachment
In nursing homes, CNA’s can become too attached to a certain resident, in different ways. The CNA will be very upset if they are not assigned to care for this resident, or, will use their relationship with this resident as an excuse for being exempted from floating to other units. The CNA might spend inordinate amounts of time with this resident, and therefore shortchange the others assigned to him/her. The aide will always cater to this residents’ every whim before all others. This resident will have more needs than all others as well- and these “needs” will increase as times moves along.

Sometimes, the resident develops a fondness for an aide that isn’t healthy. The resident becomes dependent upon the aide’s presence to be happy. He or she refuses to allow other aides to work with him/her. Residents have “bad” days when their favorite aide isn’t at work. I have seen residents who believe they are “in love” with their favorite aides, especially those with mild dementia. I’ve also seen aides who care for patients in short term rehab centers develop “crushes” on these patients. The age difference between patient and aide isn’t that far apart.

Other assigned residents are neglected. Often. Or, the needs of these residents are tended to by the CNA’s peers. This creates a problem for everyone. Resentment sets in and working relationships suffer.

Being Objective
A huge problem with this arrangement, as it’s often called, is when the aide loses his or her ability to be objective. This is a serious concern. We must be able to truthfully report the conditions of our residents. This includes, but isn’t limited to, the residents progress or decline in all areas: Ability to speak, bath, dress, feed self, walk- are all very important. The CNA who is too close to certain residents isn’t able to accurately describe the resident’s true abilities.

This effects the resident directly: A resident who cannot really dress herself can be assessed as being able to do so. This might end up in a care plan…and other aides who work with this poor resident will get frustrated at THEIR ability to motivate this resident. Families are told their loved one can still dress herself when in fact she cannot, and hasn’t been able to perform this task for awhile.

We have professional boundaries
CNA’s are considered to be the professionals in the care giver-patient relationship. A CNA is expected to maintain a therapeutic relationship and not anything else. We have the upper hand because of our knowledge and skills. We are responsible for the care we deliver. Within the ethical discussions on this subject, the care giver always has power over the patient. Many times these relationships are for the benefit of the care giver and not the patient.

When the care becomes intertwined with personal friendships and over-advocacy, it’s not healthy. What is OVER ADVOCACY? It’s when we demand residents be given care, therapies and attention they don’t truly need. This is often where over attachment to a resident’s family starts. This is another whole problem- and the legal implications are high.

Ask yourself these questions. And be honest. If you can answer more than two of these with a YES, then YOU are crossing the professional boundaries. And setting yourself up for a lot of trouble.

* Have you ever spent off-duty time with a patient/family?

* Do you keep secrets with patients/family?

* Do you become defensive when someone questions your interaction with a patient/family?

* Have you ever given gifts to or received them from a patient/family?

* Have you felt possessive of a patient/family, thinking that only you could provide the care the patient needs?

* Have you ever flirted with a patient?

* Have you chosen sides with a patient against his or her family and other staff?

If you find that you’re overly attached, how to manage that? It’s not easy. The first step is recognizing you have a problem. Then, its a matter of distancing yourself from the resident. For some aides this is best done gradually. For others, a total cut off is appropriate. Many times, when the bosses see these problems, they’ll assign the aide to another unit altogether, effectively ending the relationship. I don’t think this is a good way to do this.

A CNA can ask for a change with their assignment. Being open and honest about this will almost always result in getting the changes you seek. Part of being PROFESSIONAL means keeping staffing issues to yourself. The urge to tell the resident, or the family, a change has taken place might be very high. Its best to leave these discussions with the nurse. And, after the resident and/or their family is informed, THEY will prod the CNA for information. Again, professional boundaries must take precedent over individual staff needs.

A note about being attached to resident families.
It’s not as common as resident-CNA friendships. But its much more dangerous. And, many times these relationships are initiated by the CNA.

Often times:
A family will block out all others in the facility and depend upon the aide for all communication. The aide will be put into situations they are not trained and educated to handle. Every word the aide speaks will be heard and recalled. If the aide doesn’t have the right information, or misspeaks, a lot of trouble can arise, legally.

The aide will become a spy, for the family. CNA’s are privy to some information that is private and confidential. The levels of care for other residents is an example. When we have over bearing families seeking information from aides who are all to willing to share, it creates huge management problems. It sets the stage for a turbulent relationship between the FACILITY and the family.
Some aides like to think families have some super power over a facility. This is simply not true. Government regulation and oversight have “power”; as do legal standards.

Other aides will use the family in an effort to be assigned to the resident they want. From my experience, these residents are almost always the ones who are considered “easy to do”– and the aide is simply seeking a guarantee of being assigned to this resident. There has been some evidence of aides seeking permanent assignment to certain residents in hopes of getting some monetary award. These situations are always unethical. The aides involved in this should be terminated from employment and barred from working as aides ever again. They are opportunists.

No matter whether a CNA is overly attached to a resident or their family, it’s not usually healthy. Most times the only way to stop the problems associated with these relationships is to separate the aide and resident. Perhaps, consistent staffing would better serve all if the assignments changed every so often. A couple times a year and all aides would be required to change no matter what family requests are. We all want what is best for the residents. Sometimes though, in order to insure this is happening equally across the board, we have to make adjustments and changes.

Two Week Notices: Why It's Important

Over at the Network 54 CNA Forum a CNA brought forth an issue that must be addressed. This is about giving proper notice when an employee decides to quit their job.

NO MATTER what, a CNA must give a two week notice in order to be considered for re-hire status. Also, it’s the right thing to do. Think about it. If an aide is scheduled to work many shifts but suddenly quits, it leaves ALL those shifts open and often unfilled. Who suffers? The residents, patients, clients fist and foremost. Then the aides left behind to do the extra work. Management has to fill the position and do all the human resource things associated with this: Background checks, abuse registry check, hiring, orientation, mentor-ship if there is any, and on the job training.

In any line of work, it is considered absolutely vital to give at least two weeks notice of intention to leave a position. If one holds a college degree, usually this is a four week or one month notice.

In the Network 54 thread, the aide uses the excuse she was sick and couldn’t manage to work- which is a reasonable issue but would have been better handled a different way. She should have gone to her doctor and got a note excusing her from work for several days. We cannot expect to just ask for time off with no notice and get it. The DON refused to grant the aides request.
The aide quit her job..and then when she felt better she tried to go back to work at the nursing home. She was told she wasn’t eligible for re-hire, because she walked off her job. Her action had a consequence. Further, when she applied for work at other facilities she was not given a good reference- another consequence to her action.

While I sympathize for this aide, I also resent that she felt it was appropriate to simply quit. And leave her co workers the brunt of the work, probably many unfilled shifts of hours open and most importantly, left the residents in jeopardy of poor care. Had she brought in a doctors note we would have seen the same thing, perhaps. But at least we would know she was truly ill (which I don’t doubt) and management would have kept her on staff; she would have returned to work and spared us all the time and effort of training new hires and all that.

Giving proper notice for leaving a job is just the right thing to do. When it isn’t done, there are many who pay the price.

Shift Report: It's Very Important

I have been reading here and there about shift report.

How some nursing homes don’t seem to think the CNA needs to hear report. I think this is not only wrong, it’s bad business and a law suit waiting to happen.

CNA’s are the hands on care giver.

They are the eyes, ears, noses and hands of the health care team charged with providing care to residents. When a resident’s condition changes, does it not make sense that the first, and more often than not ONLY people who will have any direct contact with the resident KNOWS of the change?

Nursing home management, that decides CNA’s don’t need to get shift report are setting the residents AND AIDES up for potential injury, harm and distress. Physical and emotional. Nurses, going down the hall, barking out orders to the aides, AFTER the nurse has heard report is not acceptable. By then we have often done our first set of residents and it’s too late for some orders to be carried out. Or, the resident must be placed back in bed or otherwise inconvenienced. And it wastes time, that which CNA’s don’t have a lot of.

Consider this. A resident fell on evening shift. At the time no known issues resulted from the fall, but the resident needed to be observed and assessed periodically until the doctor could see them the next morning. The doctor tells the evening nurse the resident is not to do any weight bearing activities until he sees the resident. Day shift staff arrive and are given their assignments and are told to go about their job. The aide assigned to the resident who fell has no way to know that a fall occurred… The CNA doesn’t get this info and transfers the resident via a stand pivot. SNAP. A hip is broken.

Consider this. A resident’s urine is noted to be dark and foul smelling. The resident cannot speak for herself but is continent. The day shift aide assists resident to the toilet, where she voids a medium amount of dark smelly urine…the residents usual habits indicate she won’t be voiding again until sometime after lunch. A sample was needed from the morning void but that info was never passed on to the aide in time. Now the resident must endure many more hours of discomfort and pain from the UTI she has, all because of a lack of communication.

A resident was up most the night. For whatever reasons, he could not get to sleep. He is known to have behaviors, and a trigger to this is being tired…the aides don’t get report. They find him in a deep sleep and think, “Oh well, he has to get up to eat!” and wake him up…and the aide gets punched in the face. A nice black eye and broken nose are the result. And time spent at a doctors office, ex rays, pain and suffering…all on worker comp billing. Because it was never passed on in report to allow the resident to sleep this morning.

Shift report is vital to CNA’s.

We NEED the information…even when it is repetitive and mundane, it is important. CNA’s must have this information BEFORE they asked to provide care. The little details are often so helpful to us. When we know Mr. Jones hasn’t slept all night, we will allow him to sleep in, to be the last resident we get out of bed. When we know Mrs. Smith might have a UTI, we will collect a sample – many times without being asked. When we hear that Ms. Brown fall last night, we will ASK if she is able to do any weight bearing.

Report doesn’t have to be this long boring ordeal.

Many facilities only pass on information that is out of the ordinary; the typical, usual and common information doesn’t always need to be shared. Normal vital signs, BMs, percentages of meals consumed and cc amounts of fluid intake are not overly important, especially if this information is logged in a book somewhere. On the other hand, elevated temps and B/P’s DO need to be passed on; a lack of a BM in 5 days NEEDS to be passed on; consumption of NO fluids has to shared.

Part of what every CNA needs is information.
We use our training and experience to make everyone’s jobs a little easier; to make our residents comfortable. We depend upon good communication from previous shifts and nurses to provide care that is safe and appropriate. Nursing home management should always insist CNA’s take part in shift report. It should be a mandatory expectation; and, taking this one step further, if an aide shows up late for work, he or she should NOT be allowed to take an assignment until they hear report.