PREFACE

Nursing assistants are increasingly being hired by health care facilities of all types as these facilities seek ways

to provide top-quality nursing care in the most efficient manner. As a result, the need for qualified, well-
trained nursing assistants is growing rapidly. Programs that train nursing assistants are tasked with preparing

competent workers to meet this growing need as quickly as possible. Different regions of the United States
have different requirements that govern the training of nursing assistants. Although different in the depth of
training and the number of hours required, all nursing assistant educational programs must meet the
minimum requirements established by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) for the number of
hours and specific areas of curriculum taught. Many nursing assistant educational programs focus on
providing the student with the foundational concepts and facts that he or she will need to function
competently in the workplace, whether that workplace is a long-term care facility, hospital, acute or extended
care facility, hospice agency, or home health care agency. These essential requirements are the focus of this
book.
Nursing assistant education is required to focus on skill competency. However, instilling in a new nursing
assistant the confidence that he or she can perform the required skills properly is hardly enough. To function
effectively in the health care setting, nursing assistants must also be able to recognize the person within the
patient, resident, or client, and to understand that each person they are responsible for providing care for is
unique and special, with individual needs that are very different from those of the person in the next bed. This
textbook, Lippincott Essentials for Nursing Assistants, has been written not only to help students become
competent in performing the skills that are the basis of the daily care they provide, but also to teach students
to provide that care with compassion and humanism.

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