A lawsuit by nursing home advocates to terminate the use of unlicensed feeding assistants should be rejected, according to the Department of Justice. The department has petitioned a federal district court in the case.
Since 2003, a Department of Health and Human Services regulation has allowed people with about one-tenth of the training time of a certified nurse’s aide to help residents with eating and drinking. The assistants are required to receive at least eight hours of state-approved training and work under the supervision of an RN or LPN.
Nursing home officials have praised the regulation as a way to address staff shortages and to ensure more residents are fed in a timely manner. Resident advocates, however, claim the feeding assistants could be an impediment to delivering the highest quality of care and put residents in jeopardy.
The use of feeding assistants is left up to individual states’ health departments. Numerous states have already approved programs for feeding assistants, while dozens of others have explored other options.
