NAPs and Their Role in Safety by Kristy Fillmore | Episode 1 - Amplified RN News Show
ANA\California Member and media-trained nurse, Kristy Fillmore, MScN, RN, NPD-BC, CPHQ, discusses how nurses can potentially advance patient care through better use of nursing assistant personnel (NAPs).
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Jared Fesler 0:15
Welcome to the Amplified RN News Show where we're turning up the volume on nursing news in California. Today we're going to be diving in the topic of Advancing Patient Care: Nursing Assistant Personnel and their role in safety. We're joined today by Kristy Fillmore, an ANA\California member and media trained nurse. Thank you so much for joining us. Kristy, would you please introduce yourself and tell everyone a little bit why you're an expert on this topic?
Kristy Fillmore 0:40
Yes, thank you, Jared. So my name is Kristy Fillmore as Jared mentioned, and I'm a registered nurse. I've been a registered nurse for over 20 years - I can't believe that - Masters prepared. I am a board certified in nursing professional development and a certified professional health care quality. I also have been working in hospitals most of my career, right now I'm in Southern California working in a nursing professional development role, where I focus most of my project work through the lens of quality and patient safety. I'm also a PhD student and the topic that my research is interested in or focused on is nurse practice environments, specifically with nursing assistants in hospitals and their implications for patient safety.
Jared Fesler 1:19
Thank you so much, Kristy, for that background. It is such an interesting topic watching the pandemic, knowing nurses are being overwhelmed having duties on top of duties. So what is the problem? Now currently with using nursing assistant personnel? Can you tell us a little bit more about this topic?
Kristy Fillmore 1:39
Absolutely. So I wouldn't say there's an identified problem, per se, there's not a lot of research currently about nursing assistants in hospitals in general. However, in terms of patient safety, a concern specifically is the education training standards. So for example, on California, nursing assistants can go through a certified nursing assistant training program, I'm not specifically meant for long term care. So the state mandates training and education and supervised clinical practice for nursing assistants and long term care. But that's not the case in hospitals. And so in terms of our quality, and patient safety outcomes, we have a real opportunity to look at that, especially with the increased nursing shortages and burnout and tur