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Medication Certified Aides in Skilled
Nursing Facilities: An Innovation Whose
Time Has Come
ONE
of the New York State Department
of Health’s (DOH) stated Strategic
Priorities is to strengthen its capacity to achieve
its goals – through improving organizational
responsiveness to the needs of the public, ensuring
the delivery of high quality products and services
and improving the performance of its programs and
systems through employee development, as well as
organizational learning.
We all recognize the many challenges in health
care. We talk about innovation. We talk about
transformation. Unfortunately, many roadblocks and
old paradigms stand in the way of realizing our goals
and true potential to do good.
Utilizing Medication Certified Aides (MCAs) in skilled
nursing facilities (SNFs) is one innovation whose
time has come. At the forefront of advocating for this
practice in New York State has been United Helpers in
St. Lawrence County, an organization whose leadership
has been working for years to get a demonstration
project assessing the value of utilizing MCAs in SNFs
approved. New York State approved an MCA training
course decades ago, and several successful State
programs currently allow MCAs – programs that
provide far less Registered Nurse (RN) supervision
than a SNF is able to provide.
In the face of a state and national nursing crisis
that experts agree is only going to get worse and an
industry that struggles to recruit and retain employees,
why not try something that over 30 states are already
doing successfully? Think of the possibilities: career
opportunities and wage increases for our best CNAs,
stabilized staffing and nurses available to do nursing!
There are over 630 SNFs in New York State. Allowing
each of them to conservatively utilize five MCAs would
free up over 3,000 badly needed nurses – going a long
way toward alleviating their workforce challenges,
improving the quality of care provided and even
assisting DOH in fulfilling its Strategic Priorities.
There are over 630
SNFs in New York
State. Allowing
each of them to
conservatively utilize
five MCAs would free
up over 3,000 badly
needed nurses...
Adviser a publication of LeadingAge New York | Fall 2018