WIN-A-STEP-UP

Pilot Summary

The WIN A STEP UP program, a partnership of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, and the Institute on Aging of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was made possible by a grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust. The purpose of this grant was to study recruitment and retention of nursing assistants and personal care workers in North Carolina long-term care facilities. Read the background document Where Have All the Nurse Aides Gone?.

Pilot Phase

High turnover levels , explosive growth of an aging population and sensationalist media accounts of patient abuse by long-term care workers have attracted the attention of policy makers, administrators and researchers to the continuing problems related to nursing assistants in long-term care (LTC) organizations North Carolina . Average turnover rates for nursing assistants range in 2000 from 40% in hospice agencies to 119% in adult care homes. This has potentially damaging consequences in regards to quality of care, patient satisfaction, working conditions, future turnover, and health care costs. Since the projected growth in this job category is significant due to the shifting demographics, the WIN A STEP UP program was implemented to address nursing assistant recruitment and retention issues in long term care facilities and agencies in North Carolina . The pilot phase of the WIN A STEP UP program (March 1, 1998 through January 2002) was developed with two purposes:

1. Examining the situation and the recruitment of nursing assistants in various long-term care settings--adult care homes, assisted living, hospice, home health, and nursing homes; and
2. Developing and implementing educational modules and incentives to improve job quality and reduce turnover in the nursing assistant workforce.

In the pilot phase in North Carolina, the WIN A STEP UP program proved to be successful in increasing job retention, job satisfaction, the skill level of nursing assistants, and in promoting teamwork within the facility/agency. For more information on the pilot phase, please read the executive summary.

Acknowledgements

Senior Project Director: Thomas R. Konrad, PhD

IOA PROJECT TEAM:
Jennifer Craft Morgan
Leah Tilden
Andrea Tuttle
Jane Darter
Larry Logan

NC DHHS TEAM MEMBERS:
Susan Harmuth
Hazel Slocumb
Jesse Goodman

WIN A STEP UP Thanks the Following Contributors: Wendy Mann, Robin Crabtree, Diane Wurzinger, Victor Marshall, Mary Altpeter, Danielle Borasky, Robert Schwartz, Georgia Hunter, Kirsten Leysieffer, Doretha Farrar, Laurie Dennison, Fatimah Nubee, Sajdah Nubee, Leigh-Anne Royster, Cheryl Thompson, Brandy Farrar, Caryn Sawyer, Alfred Chang, Ann Quarles, Jeffrey Rosenthal, Laura Hanson, Martha Henderson and Kimberly Reynolds, Lynn Whitener, Christiane Voisin, Mark Sager, our advisory committee, the administrators and staff development coordinators at our pilot and control sites, our nursing assistant participants and all the nursing assistants from whom we collected data.

ADVISORY COMMITEE: Susan Balfour, Michael Bell, Jerry Cooper, Ann DeMaine, Stacy Flannery, Polly Godwin, Jesse Goodman, Susan Harmuth, Rees Jenkins, Jean Kincade, Linda Lacey, Ronnie Metcalf, Linda Miller, Cheryl Rosemond, Mary Anne Salmon, Wendy Sause, Teresa Scheid, Dennis Sherrod, Hazel Slocumb, Craig Souza, Sherry Thomas, and Lou Wilson.