Nurse aides must complete an educational training program prior to being licensed or certified by their state to work as a nurse aide in a health care facility. With the number of nurse aides needed expected to grow as generations move into the elderly years and demand more health care services, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, now is the perfect time to set up a nurses aide school.
Instructions
1. Find funding to cover start-up costs. The cost to rent a facility, pay instructors and staff, as well as buy equipment for the classroom and lab, can quickly add up for opening a nurses aide school. To cover these expenses, many schools turn to grant funding or donations from private donors. States may have grant funds available to open a new nurse aide school if a critical shortage of nurse aides exist, but if not available from states, schools can check out private foundations for grants.
2. Seek out a facility. A nurses aide school needs offices, a classroom and a location to perform clinicals. The offices house the coordinator or director of the school and support staff responsible for answering phones, processing student enrollments and managing the paperwork involved in operating a nurses aide school. Many offices in a nurses aide school are in the same building or area as the classroom, which is where the students learn and gain experience role-playing as a nurse aide in a simulated lab environment. As for clinicals, a nurses aide school must use an actual medical facility, such as a hospital or nursing home to complete clinical work. A written contract needs to be signed by the school and the facility and submitted later to the state when the school is applying for accreditation.
3. Interview and hire staff. Proper staffing is important to ensure the success of a nurses aide school, and this requires a school director, instructors and support staff. Instructors and the director are required to have and maintain a current license as a registered nurse throughout the duration of their employment with the school. Depending on the state's requirements, they also may be required to complete a class on teaching nurse aide courses or provide proof of experience working in a long-term care facility. Support staff aren't required to have any special qualifications, so each school can hire receptionists and administrative assistants that meet the needs of their facility.
4. Create the school's policies and procedures. Institutions offering nurse aide training must have written policies and procedures that guide the operation of the school and how situations are handled. Some policies are mandated by the state, and these include the ratio of students to instructors, the pass/fail rate for students and the requirements to complete the training program. Others are voluntary and at the discretion of the school. Examples of voluntary policies include admission requirements, refunds and class cancellation.
5. Build the curriculum for nurse aide classes. Each state has a list of subjects a nurses aide school must teach to students to ensure all students are able to pass the licensing or certification exam. It's the responsibility of a school to determine how, and in what sequence, they teach the information. To build the curriculum, schools take the topics and subjects to be covered and develop them into units, adding any additional content they want to cover. Once they've developed the curriculum, they assign contact hours to each unit to ensure that they meet the minimum number of contact hours required by their state for a nurse aide class. The hours listed next to each unit specify the amount of time an instructor will spend teaching the information before moving on to another unit.
6. Submit an application for approval. After the curriculum has been completed, a nurses' aide school can submit an application to be approved or accredited by their state. This approval allows students completing the nurse aide course at the school to apply for a license or certification as a nurse aide with the state. The school is required to submit a written, paper application detailing the contact information for the school as well as their intent to start a nurse aide training program. Supporting documents need to be submitted with the application and these include the contract with a facility to do clinicals, a copy of the curriculum and a copy of the policies and procedures for the school. In addition, resumes and documents showing proof of training as a nurse aide teacher is required of the school director and instructors to ensure they have the appropriate qualifications.
7. Buy lab and classroom equipment. In a typical nurse aide classroom, students have chairs and either desks or tables to use while an instructor uses audio-visual equipment to project notes, videos or other resources for the students as they lecture. The lab must contain typical equipment found in a hospital room such as a hospital bed, wheelchair, overbed table and patient lift since students need to practice tasks and responsibilities in a simulated environment.
8. Accept students and start classes. A nurse aide school can begin marketing their classes to prospective students once they've been approved and purchased the equipment needed for the class to be a success. General advertising through newspaper, radio, television and the Internet can be beneficial, as can networking with workforce centers, job training organizations and unemployment agencies.
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