Westminster Village is a continuing care retirement community, or CCRC, which offers a full range of health care and supportive services all on one campus. Westminster Village altogether provides independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing care. For more than 30 years, their retirement community has been the preferred choice for seniors who want to maintain an independent and fulfilling lifestyle full of activity, wellness, companionship, and peace of mind.
As a non-profit organization, Westminster Village draws heavily upon the support and involvement of outstanding individuals in the local community. Its operation costs are all dependent on the fees paid by residents as well as funds raised from local community.
To make Westminster Village fully operational, the organization is managed by an on-site professional management team from CRSA, a Lifecare Services Company, who are guided and governed by a dedicated 9-person Board of Directors, consisting of 6 community leaders and 3 Westminster Village residents. While only a management team is far from enough, larger basic structure is needed to fulfill the daily needs of those senior residents. The most important composition of this basic structure is the certified nursing assistant, or more commonly known as a CNA. In Westminster Village, CNAs help residents with health care needs as well as basic quality-of-life needs under the supervision of the management team.
To be specific, CNAs are responsible for five major areas in activities of daily living: bathing, eating, dressing/grooming, toileting, and transferring/getting around inside. Some detailed jobs they need to do for their residents in their daily lives may include the following:
Administer medications or treatments, such as catheterizations, suppositories, massages, or douches, as directed by a physician or nurse.
Clean and sanitize patient rooms, bathrooms, examination rooms, or other patient areas.
Document or otherwise report observations of patient behavior, complaints, or physical symptoms to nurses.
Apply clean dressings, slings, stockings, or support bandages, under direction of nurse or physician.
Although a regular shift will be provided for the employees, they do have a large amount of work. Often times, this work covers multiple areas in life that need to be managed and taken care of on a specific schedule. At the end of every year, an evaluation will be provided by both residents and supervisors to look over an employee’s job performance in the past year. An employee with a low evaluation may be let go in order to insure that Westminster Village keeps a high service level, and, most importantly, their residents’ satisfaction.
Problem Definition and Critical Issues
High stress from the job requirements and the entire work environment is a critical problem among employees at any kind of continuing care retirement community, and Westminster Village is no exception. Typically, high stress can trigger many symptoms and can lead to potentially other serious problems. Due to the high requirements of the job, qualified workers may experience some competition from fellow employees and other applicants because of the evaluation from residents. The complexity of the job increases the difficulty for the employees to get everything done well and on time. Furthermore, the uncertainty of residents’ satisfaction is something that puts even more strain on an employee. The requirements of long shifts and high concentrated engagement also increases employees’ psychological pressure.
High stress is also the potential cause of other problems, too, like a high turnover rate. Part of the turnover can be explained by personal career development while another part could be because of the constant lack of solutions for dealing with high stress. This unresolved issue of high stress can possibly cause serious strains like anxiety, loss of focus, and many other kinds of
