These two files will help you prepare your training program for approval by your state regulatory agency. They are also found on the CD in the Instructor’s Manual.
- Appendix K, Curriculum Outline - This is in MS Word. It is a 3-column chart of the entire text, chapter by chapter: content, behavioral objective, and suggested activities. This is a common format for registering your program with state authorities. It is also printed in the manual, but with the copy on the CD you can copy it to you own computer and customize it as you like. You can also download the file by clicking on the link.
- Chart of State Regulations - This is in MS Excel. You can also download the file by clicking on the link. There are three sheets. On the Curriculum Requirements sheet, one column lists the pages numbers in the How To Be a Nurse Assistant student text that correspond to the subjects in the rows.
Sheet 1) State Requirements—this gives the governing body in each state, the hours of instruction required (both classroom and clinical), details about the examination, the in service education required, and a lot of other general information.Sheet 2) Curriculum Requirements—this is divided in two parts. The first is a list (in alphabetical order) of the skills required in an orientation program—if the state has one. The second, much longer, list is of the required curriculum for nurse assistant training in each state.
You can download the Excel spreadsheet to customize it for your own purposes—to list only the curriculum requirements of your own state or to compare several states, for example. If you want to see the requirements only for a particular state, note which column the state is in, then simply select all the data (or just click the square at the upper left corner of the spreadsheet to select the entire spreadsheet), then go to the “data” menu and choose “sort.” You then choose which column (state) to sort on. This will put all the X’s (the topics that state requires) in the top rows of the spreadsheet.
If you want to compare states, just “hide” any columns (states) that lie between them. Select the columns you want to hide, then go to the “format” menu, click on “columns,” and click on “hide.” Of course you could also just delete the columns you didn’t want, or copy the columns you did want into another spreadsheet—but it is usually easier just to “hide” unwanted columns. The “sort” feature allows you to sort on three different columns at once.
The curriculum has been divided into these major categories:
- Alzheimer's Disease/Care of the Cognitively Impaired
- Anatomy/Physiology
- Basic Nursing Skills
- Basic Restorative Care
- Care of Resident's Environment
- Communication/Interpersonal Skills
- Competency in the role of the CNA
- Death and Dying
- Family Role and Community Resources
- Food Service Principles
- Growth and Development
- Legal Issues
- Nutrition and Hydration
- Observation, Reporting, and Recording Skills
- Personal Care Skills
- Resident's Independence
- Residents' Rights
- Safety/Emergency Concepts
- Symptoms and Basic Care Consideration
Within each category, the subjects are listed alphabetically.
Sheet 3) Basic Nursing Skills—a very short list for reference.
States vary greatly in the length and detail of their regulations. Some states follow OBRA 87 very closely without much elaboration. Other states go into great detail in describing their required curriculum—Kansas, Maine, and Texas, for example. In compiling the list of curriculum requirements, we tried to remain faithful to the language of state regulations. However, to limit the size of the list we sometimes placed a topic under an existing heading rather than creating a new heading whose wording would be only slightly different. Kansas, for example has a 135-page single-spaced curriculum that is extremely detailed. To add every item to the spreadsheet would probably have required 4,000 rows—for example, under “Depression” are two subheadings, “Behaviors” and “CNA’s Response to Behaviors”; the first has three subheadings of its own, and the second four. In this particular example, the topic was simply checked off under “Depression.” Therefore this spreadsheet is a summary of state regulations, not the regulations themselves. You should always refer back to your state’s regulations for exact wording.
We used the most recent copy of regulations and curricula available, in almost all cases obtaining the regulations directly from the appropriate state agency. If you find a mistake, please contact AHCA.