Guidelines for Personal Care Attendants | Gillette

We hope to help make the transition between hospital and residence as smooth as possible for patients and we look forward to working with you as a partner in care.  Your presence will be reassuring and we encourage you to recommend ways to provide care for your client.

In response to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations and risk-management concerns, we’ve compiled the following guidelines. These guidelines specify activity and informational procedures that apply while a patient is at Gillette.  If you’ve worked with us in the past, you might notice some changes. Our goals are to maintain patient privacy, minimize liability issues and ensure patient safety. 

• Identify yourself and check in with the nursing unit before entering a patient’s room.
• When we admit a patient, please tell the patient’s Gillette nurse if we must complete paperwork or meet any other requirements before discharging the patient.
• While someone is hospitalized at Gillette, Gillette staff must provide all physical care and treatment for that patient. A nurse might invite you to help provide care if  doing so could benefit the patient.  When appropriate, we’ll demonstrate methods of  care to you. 
• You may take notes as required for your employer. Such notes don’t replace the documentation we require of Gillette staff assigned to a patient.
• To comply with HIPAA regulations, we must keep confidential all information — oral, printed and electronic — regarding a patient’s care. To maintain patient privacy, we occasionally might ask you step out of a patient’s room. (If you need such information, you must obtain a release of information from a patient’s parent or legal guardian, when appropriate, or from a patient who serves as his/her own guardian).
• When we discharge a patient to a group home, we must communicate the transfer to a licensed professional there (usually a registered nurse, the group-home’s manager, or the patient’s case manager).  That person should communicate a patient’s care needs to you and other group-home staff, as appropriate.

If you have questions, please contact the nurse manager or supervisor of the patient’s unit at Gillette.