Transcription
Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. This video today is going to be on CNA, certified nursing assistants. Some responsibilities that they have in a hospital versus in long-term care or a nursing home. So I'll kind of bounce back and forth between them. So yeah.
First thing, CNAs in hospitals. Well, in long-term care, long-term care CNAs are always feeding the patients. These long-term care patients are elderly. A lot of them do have difficulty eating and swallowing, forgetting and let them forget how to eat, how to swallow, how to raise this, you know, somewhere to their mouth. So they require feeding. They require CNAs to feed them. So that you will see absolutely 100% in hospitals. It's more rare. Our patients usually do still remember how to eat. And like if they can't, they're usually like in, you know, ICU or something where they're getting the nutrition intravenously. So like in ICU, really won't see CNA feeding any patients in there. So yeah, it's more rare to see a CNA actually sitting in a room feeding a patient. No, but you will see that 100% in long-term care.
The other is toileting. It's about the same or both hospital and long-term care. CNAs will do a lot of toileting. See, you nice in hospitals, they bring a lot of, they bring a lot of water. They bring a lot of water. A long-term care, the CNAs will bring it like three times a shift, one in the morning, one afternoon, one at night. So yeah, you may see them and they usually bring it like at one time. You will also see that in the hospital, but the CNAs and hospitals are bringing them more often. Yes, it's patients are always bringing for water or for some sort of drink or something. Let's see that time care. In a long-term care, you will 100% do do that. That's a big job as CNAs have to do. They have to bathe the patients, brush your teeth, wash your face, comb their hair, get them dressed for bed. Yeah, you'll see that every day. That's what CNAs do. That's in long-term care. That's what they do versus in a hospital. It just depends on the patient. A lot of patients will refuse bedtime care. They're like, I don't need you brush my teeth. I don't need a bed bath. I'll, you know, I can get in the shower myself. So it, you won't see it as often, whereas again, and long-term care, you will see it every day. CNAs will do that every day.
Let's see, in hospitals, you will see a lot CNAs being sitters, meaning that we have a patient who is a risk to themselves. And so CNA will sit in that room with that patient. And they have to just sit in that one room with that patient the entire shift and just watch them. In long-term care, you don't really have that. If we had whenever we had patients who required a sitter, that patient was out out of their room. And they were out with everybody, with all the staff, with the nurse. Sometimes they even set behind the nurses desk. But yeah, that patient like that is usually out.
Yeah, another thing in the hospital that CNAs would do, you will see them walking patients. Yeah, you will see them walking on more than you will see in long-term care. A lot of our patients in long-term care and wheelchairs, so you won't really see that. You you will see CNAs like doing stand biases, like our patients with walkers. You'll see CNAs walking next to them. You'll see that more actually in, well, it just depends. We have a lot of long-term care patients who are stable with their walker. But in the hospital, if you see a patient walking outside of the room, they are 98% of the time with a CNA versus in long-term care, you see plenty of patients walking around, our residents walking around with their walkers without anybody with them.
Let's see, bed changes. Bed changes happen in the hospital if they're needed. There is supposed to be a bad change every day. And I think it happens, it does happen every day. But sometimes in long-term care, well, in hospice, it may not happen like every shift versus like and long-term care, it will probably happen every shift because a lot of our patients, they wet themselves a lot. So, um, yeah.
Weights. Getting weight. CNAs usually have to get weights every day in a hospital for their patients versus in long-term care, it's usually like a weekly weight that is needed on patients. Let's see.
Long-term care, you will see, um, the CNAs bringing the patients out of the room and then back into the room and then either back because in long-term care, the patients will eat out in the dining room. So the CNAs are constantly having to get the patient out of bed, bring them out into the dining area, feed them, and then bring them back, toilet and put them back in the bed into the next meal. So it's a lot of that, a lot of a lot of taking the patient in and out of the room. First, in the hospital, you just don't see that. Not every patient can be up and walking. So again, it's pretty rare to have your patients out walking around in the halls. And again, as we know, in the hospital, patient needs in the room, so you don't see that a lot in the hospital.
Now, that's about it as far as long-term care of what the CNAs have to do for them. In hospitals, it's more more like task oriented that CNAs get to do. Long-term care is harder on the body. And you know, you do a lot of physical work in long-term care versus in the hospital, it's a little bit easier on the CNAs body, but they do have a lot more tasks to do.
So some other tasks that CNAs have to do in the hospital that you will more than likely will not see happening in long-term care is vital signs. CNAs and hospitals can get our vital signs, which is awesome. A long-term care, the long-term care break day, a CNA never got vital signs, never. I know some long-term care facilities will allow their CNAs to get them, but in mine, it didn't. But in the hospital, on a lot of you, especially like your medical surge units and stuff, on your lower acuity patients, your CNAs will get your vitals for you.
Another thing that CNAs do, even on high acuity, like an ICU, they will get your blood sugars. They will do your accu-check for you. So that's nice. Another thing that I saw at a hospital is that CNAs can do wound care. I was on a cardiac unit and heart surgery patients will open her or whatever. The CNAs were actually changing the dressings, which is pretty cool. So they do wound care. They not so much like wound care like cleaning out a room, they change dressings is what I mean. They change it and like incisions and stuff and they'll clean that out and put new new dressings on.
They are also able to take out Foley catheters, which is awesome. They are able to take out IVs and they can put on your EKG stickers or your monitors. CNAs do that also. CNAs are able to do a couple other jobs, which I think is cool. At my hospital, CNAs can work like monitoring telemetry, the the monitors. So if your patient is having a dysrhythmia or something or if they're off the monitor, off their tele monitor, the CNA will call you from that localized room wherever they are. They're not on the floor, they're like actually in my hospital. The CNAs who watch the telly, they're not even in the hospital during another hospital. So, um, yeah, they'll call us and they'll be like, yeah, you know, your patient's in V-tach or they're having a just really, uh, right now or they're off the monitor. So that's pretty cool. Our CNAs can do that.
And the other thing that CNAs can do is at my hospital, we have cameras that watch our patients. Our patients who are more like, you know, at risk for falls. So they are again, in another room, another floor or whatever. And they watch the cameras and they watch, you know, I don't know how many patients they have, but probably at least like more than five. And they're able to watch them on the monitor. And if your patient is starting to get out of bed or if they're messing with IVs or Foley's or whatever, if they're just being a danger to themselves, the CNA can call you and be like, your your patient's in 13 is trying to get out of bed. So I think that's pretty cool.
Um, yeah, so that is some nursing responsibilities that CNAs do in a hospital versus in a nursing home. So if there's anything I skipped, which I'm sure there will be, especially you like the long-term care part, does anything I missed that you can add? Let me know. And what do you guys think? Do you think that I'd be cooler to work in a hospital as a CNA or in long-term care? What do you think? All right, yeah, okay. So thank you for watching. All right, bye guys.