Health care students take training home

Nov. 23--Demand for personal care aides is expected to nearly double by 2022, and one local business recently moved to a larger site to train them.

Cardinal Institute for Health Careers, now at 150 Riverside Parkway in Stafford, offers 40-hour classes approved by the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS) for personal care aides.

"The day they graduate, they can be employed, and many of them have," said Linda Copeland, the institute's president. "I can't keep up with the demand. I have agencies calling me to ask if I have any new graduates."

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of personal care aides is projected to grow from 1.19 million in 2012 to 1.77 million in 2022, a 49 percent gain. That's much faster than the average for all occupations nationwide.

The driving force is a combination of an aging Baby-Boom population and the increasing desire of the elderly, disabled and those recuperating from surgery or an illness to choose home care because it's often less expensive and a more personal experience than a nursing home.

"Most people, when they're ill and in the hospital, will be asked, 'Where do you want to go after you're released?'" said Copeland, who's been a critical care nurse and emergency nurse practitioner. "Ninety-nine percent will say they want to go home. Sometimes they need help. If they don't have a family member, if they have insurance, they can have someone come in to help."

Cardinal offers a one-week daytime class and a two-week evening class. Both use the same curriculum provided by DMAS and the same grading system that Copeland used when she taught nursing students at Germanna Community College. (GCC also offers a 40-hour personal aide class.) Graduates are eligible to be hired by local home care and home health agencies that provide services to Medicaid and Medicare clients.

The classes cover such topics as how to provide personal hygiene services, do housekeeping and laundry, prepare meals and provide feeding, remind clients to take medication and assist when a client is using a cane, walker or wheelchair.

Cardinal has a lab with different styles of hospital beds and an assortment of equipment such as oxygen tanks. Students get to practice helping each other use them so they can experience the procedures from both sides. In one exercise, they have to wheel classmates into the building's elevator, out the front door and help them in and out of a car.

Copeland said that the majority of her personal care aide students were inspired to get into the field because they'd taken care of someone when they were young.

The student who touched her heart the most, she said, was a 22-year-old who'd been responsible for taking care of her great-grandmother when she was 12. She bathed her, fed her and gave her insulin shots.

"This was the thing that got me," Copeland said. "I asked her if she'd had any training. 'Well,' she said, 'I watched someone else do it.' Based on that experience, she wanted to [be a personal care aide]."

Cardinal also offers a class for family caregivers to help them understand medical conditions, how to provide care safely, legal issues such as living wills and advanced directives, and what resources are available such as hospice and palliative care.

Copeland said that there is a push at the state and federal levels to make hospitals designate a caregiver before discharging a patient.

"While in theory that sounds great," Copeland said, "I don't know how hospitals who are already running very lean are going to be able to take on the education of the caregiver. What happens when the caregiver gets home and has a question or something comes up? Who do they call? Where do they go?"

Cardinal also offers classes in phlebotomy, for nurses who want to transition into home health care and certification in CPR and using an automated external defibrillator.

Cathy Jett: 540.374-5407

[email protected]

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