Nursing Assistants' Week: An Expert's Advocacy Guide

Interview with an Expert: Genevieve Gipson, RN, MEd, RNC

“We’re in a crisis right now,” Genevieve Gipson, RN, MEd, RNC, Director of the National Network of Career Nursing Assistants (NNCNA). “And in another five to ten years, you better figure out who’s going to take care of you and yours when you’re older. Because the traditional pool of workers will no longer exist, and we need new avenues for staffing.”

The retirement of the Baby Boomers is set to be one of the most impactful demographic shifts in history: the over-65 age group is the fastest-growing segment of the population, while the traditional pool of workers is declining. The effects of this are most felt in healthcare-related fields. Nursing assistants, who often work in long-term care facilities and directly with elderly populations, are on the front lines. This has led to a broad call for more nursing assistants, but simply adding new people to the workforce isn’t enough.

“We really need to shift our focus from recruiting new people, to keeping the good ones and then filling in the blanks,” Gipson says. “It’s a revolving door right now, and we need to look at how to stabilize this workforce.”

Part of the problem is in the pipelines that educate and train new nursing assistants today. Some new nursing assistants have only practiced clinical skills in a lab-based setting, and enter into the care setting without ever having physically touched a patient.

But to Gipson and many of her experienced colleagues, a warm approach and attending skills are important to patient engagement and patient relationships. These skills, most commonly found in experienced nursing assistants, are also some of the leading indicators of career longevity in the profession.

“Experienced nursing assistants will say that the relationship with the patient is what makes it all worthwhile,” Gipson says.

One way to address both that lack of experience with patients and the overall workforce shortage is through early education. Programs such as “Everyone A Caregiver” seek to make basic caregiving skills a standard feature of K-12 education. Aside from being a useful and universal skill to have, it can also incentivize more people to get involved in long-term care. In studies conducted through the National Honor Society, nearly 100 percent of experienced nursing assistant respondents said that they had an experience caring for an older person when they were young and that it was positive.

Unfortunately, even experienced nursing assistants aren’t immune from the high turnover of the profession. Too many find themselves overworked, unsupported, unrecognized, and unheard. It’s crucial that the nation do more to change that.

“The nursing assistant is a key player in the lives of her patients, and if all the nursing assistants disappeared, it’d only take a few minutes for the entire system to cave in,” Gipson says. “Nursing assistants provide the foundation of direct care in the healthcare system.”

The 44th Annual National Nursing Assistants’ Week is an opportunity to reward and recognize the caregivers who look after our loved ones in their time of need. From tangible rewards to policy changes and increased awareness, we can all do more to validate and improve the work-life of nursing assistants.

“There are so many opportunities to get involved,” Gipson says. “But there are also opportunities to do nice things for nursing assistants, and just saying thank you can be an important one. If someone sent a card to an NA, they might take it home and put it on their wall, or in a scrapbook, and value them. Because someone has said thank you.”