Developing a taxonomy of health care aide tasks in a personal care home

• Main Author: Zinnick, Shauna Gerry
• Other Authors: Doupe, Malcolm (Community Health Sciences)
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Taxonomy; Health care aide; Nursing home; Personal care home; Task; Medical domain; Social domain; Long term care; Delphi technique; Focus group
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1993/31797

Purpose: to understand the tasks that health care aides (HCAs) are responsible for in a nursing home setting, and to understand which of these tasks HCAs feel are more important. Methods: In Phase 1, focus groups were conducted to validate the list of tasks and ensure HCAs could differentiate between them, according to task urgency, quality of care, and quality of life. During Phase 2, HCAs participated in a Delphi process to reach consensus on the relative importance of these tasks. Results: Participants reached consensus that 12 of 31 tasks were highly important according to task urgency. Of these, 10 were from the medical domain (e.g., skin care). Similar results were reached for the other definitions of importance. Conclusions: This study provides a framework for classifying HCA tasks into three domains (medical, social and indirect). Irrespective of the definition of importance used, medical tasks are consistently deemed as more important. === October 2016