When I accepted the position of chief compliance and ethics officer for Signature HealthCARE four years ago, the job came with one condition: that I become a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA).

The work of a CNA is physical and emotional, helping others during their most vulnerable times. After completing the training, I passed the state exam and earned my letters. Since then, I have worked as a CNA in several of our facilities during our annual days of service and, most recently, during COVID-19.

Our clinical teams spend up to 12 hours a day on their feet, selflessly caring for others’ needs with little time to take a break. Unlike those of us who sit in corporate offices, many of our clinicians don’t work at an assigned computer. Instead, they do their history and physical examinations, enter orders, and write progress notes at shared workstations.

The frontline experience made me think about the mandates we impose on our employees to complete hours of compliance training when they face time and access constraints.

As a result, we changed the way we deliver annual compliance education:

• Breaking it into smaller pieces that don’t have to be completed at once,
• Tailoring the training to job roles,
• Providing tablets to facilities to increase access,
• Offering it through an app so the training can be completed anywhere at any time, and
• Providing resources for staff to ask the compliance team questions.

Being a CNA is the ultimate servant leadership role. Being a CNA not only has taught me to be a better human being, but also to be a better compliance officer.

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Copyright 2021 Compliance Today, a publication of the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA)

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