Course Competency 1: Communicate professionally within a healthcare setting

Learning Objectives:

• Interact with clients, families and co-workers
• Display appropriate verbal and nonverbal skills in the work setting
• Establish a therapeutic relationship with clients, families, and co-workers
• Respond to clients that exhibit problematic behavior
• Respond to aggressive behavior
• Establish working relationship with supervisors and peers following the chain of command
• Demonstrate reporting and documentation
• Assist client to meet spiritual needs
• Adapt care/communication to meet the psychological needs of the aging client
• Demonstrate sensitivity to emotional needs, social diversity, and mental health of clients, families, and coworkers
• Apply strategies to cope with client and family stress
• Accept constructive feedback

Course Competency 2: Demonstrate professionalism in the workplace

Learning Objectives:

• Function within and uphold the ethical and legal responsibilities of the Nursing Assistant
• Carry out assignments
• Develop job seeking and keeping skills
• Protect rights of clients
• Treat client respectfully regardless of social, ethnic, or religious background
• Apply strategies to cope with caregiver stress
• Differentiate the nursing assistant role in a variety of health care settings

Course Competency 3: Maintain a safe healthcare environment

Learning Objectives:

• Identify potential life-threatening situations, including fire, falls, burns, and suffocation
• List common safety procedures to prevent fires, falls, burns and suffocation.
• Outline the fire plan to be used in case of drill or real fire
• Trace the evacuation route in case of fire or severe weather in classroom or facility
• Differentiate between heat exhaustion and heat stroke/sun stroke.
• Determine presence of life-threatening situations: —bleeding, weather extremes, seizures
• Illustrate actions required for bleeding, seizures, weather extremes.
• Review aggressive behavior threat to personal safety
• Outline necessary measures when weather conditions are extremely hot/humid or cold

Course Competency 4: Adhere to principles of infection control

Learning Objectives:

• Identify how germs can leave one body and enter another
• Apply principles of infection control
• Use standard precautions to minimize risk of infection
• Identify substances treated as infectious waste
• Explain feelings that may be experienced by a client and family when a communicable disease is present
• Demonstrate use of Personal Protective Equipment (gloves, mask, gown)
• Follow isolation practices as posted
• Differentiate between standard precautions and universal precautions
• Outline procedure for serving a food tray and feeding a client in isolation

Course Competency 5: Provide for personal care needs of clients

Learning Objectives: 

• Explain the importance of adhering to standard precautions for perineal and oral care
• Provide for perineal care as part of the bath procedure
• Explain how the procedure for perineal care differs for male and female clients
• Demonstrate male and female perineal care
• Demonstrate how to trim fingernails and toenails in lab or clinical setting
• Explain why assistant may not trim the nails of clients with poor circulation or diabetes
• Demonstrate cleaning of dentures
• Provide for oral hygiene
• Define what is meant by ADLs

Course Competency 6: Provide for basic nursing care needs

Learning Objectives:

• Use equipment common to a client area: bed, bedside stand, over bed table, call light, curtains, side rails, chair
• Operate manual and/or electric beds
• Manipulate various types of side rails safely
• Activate (on and off) signal devices/call bells
• Maintain a clean, comfortable, and safe client environment
• Identify appropriate placement of client’s personal care items

Course Competency 7: Demonstrate reporting and documentation of client data

Learning Objectives:

• Differentiate between subjective and objective information
• Identify changes in client condition that need to be reported to the nurse
• Report observations and/or changes for each client to appropriate staff
• Define incident reporting and when to complete one
• Obtain report on client prior to starting care

Course Competency 8: Utilize principles of mobility to assist clients

Learning Objectives:

• Examine types and uses of restraining devices
• Use restraint alternatives
• Assist with moving or positioning a client
• Promote joint mobility, body alignment, and activity
• Assist with ambulation
• Use client transfer techniques
• Apply prosthetic and orthotic devices

Course Competency 9: Promote independence through rehabilitation/restorative care

Learning Objectives:

• Assist client with range of motion exercises
• Promote client independence during activities of daily living (ADL)
• Assist clients with hearing or vision impairment with activities of daily living
• Assist clients with speech impairment with activities of daily living
• Assist with restorative therapies

Course Competency 10: Provide care for clients experiencing acute and chronic health conditions

Learning Objectives:

• Care for client with developmental disabilities
• Care for clients with long-term, disabling conditions including dementia
• Assist clients with dementia through environment and activities
• Manage stressful situations with clients with dementia
• Provide food and fluid intake monitoring and interventions for clients with dementia
• Manage behavioral challenges of clients with dementia
• Demonstrate sensitivity to emotional needs, social diversity, and mental health of clients
• Respond to psycho-social needs of clients

WisTech Open, including the Open RN and Bright Beginnings series, does not provide ancillary or instructor materials. You can instead create free, customized supplementary resources—slides, quizzes, worksheets, study guides, and more - on demand, through our generative AI platform, WisTech Fusion: https://www.wistechopen.org/wistech-fusion. Fusion only uses content from WisTech Open, Open RN, and Bright Beginnings resources. 

To help keep print textbook costs low for our students, please consider using the electronic version, or purchasing a personal print copy, rather than requesting a publisher/desktop version from our printing partner. Orders can be placed through Kendall Hunt: https://he.kendallhunt.com/catalog.