Purpose for the program: Patient care assistants (PCAs) are vital components to the health care team and the delivery of patient care. Providing PCAs with the appropriate level of education and skills, increases their knowledge, job satisfaction, and improves patient care. To achieve this, a PCA education project was implemented to fill an identified practice gap between the knowledge levels of patient care assistants and rationales surrounding their delivery of nurse delegated newborn care tasks. PCAs support nursing staff in assessing and carrying out physician orders, such as newborn vital signs and lab specimens.

Implications for nursing practice: It was identified that PCAs, nurses, patients, and their families would benefit from providing PCAs with basic patho physiology knowledge related to newborn care and interventions. This knowledge base will assist PCAs in their professional abilities to address parental newborn concerns and integrate a higher level of comprehension into their patient care. Providing PCAs with educational building blocks for success was undertaken to improve patient and nurse relationships.

Proposed change: The training project provided PCAs a modified version of the neonatal education program S.T.A.B.L.E® (Sugar, Temperature, Airway, Blood pressure, Labs, Emotions). PCAs were provided with basic patho physiology regarding neonatal care, rationales for interventions, lab testing, and the capability to answer basic parental questions surrounding the delegated newborn nursing tasks.

Implementation, outcomes and evaluation: The modified S.T.A.B.L.E® education program was offered through a four hour program. Concept mapping and case studies were utilized to reinforce information and facilitate deeper learning.  The modified S.T.A.B.L.E® education program increased the PCAs confidence, competence, and commitment to the delivery of thorough and high quality care. Providing PCAs with the S.T.A.B.L.E® knowledge fostered critical thinking, teamwork, and professional development. Cooperative practice and knowledgeable dialogue between nurses and PCAs strengthened workplace and patient relationships. The education program will be evaluated using immediate, short and long term outcome measures. PCA outcomes were assessed with a self-reported questionnaire given to the staff members pre-course and 4-6 weeks following the course to examine their perceived levels of self-efficacy, satisfaction, and use of the newborn care information. To assess changes in knowledge levels, PCAs were given pre and post comprehension tests along with a developed course evaluation tool. Long term outcome measures of this educational intervention will include increased communication, decrease in adverse newborn events, and increased employee satisfaction.

Keywords: Professional education, team training, STABLE, Patient Care Assistants, employee satisfaction