Evaluation of the implementation of Assistant in Nursing workforce in haemodialysis units

The aim of this project was to evaluate the introduction of Assistant in Nursing (AINs) in the haemodialysis units at a major tertiary Area Health Service in Sydney, Australia. All nursing staff were asked to complete a baseline and follow-up survey to determine changes to their attitudes to the new skill mix model and their satisfaction with the new organization of care delivery in their dialysis units. Comparison of the baseline and follow-up surveys in the paired data was favourable with nurses acknowledging that they would cope well with the introduction of AINs, and they were more likely to disagree with the statement that their workload would increase after the introduction of AINs in the follow-up survey. There was little difference in (i) the workload of the dialysis units before and during the intervention; and (ii) the incidence of patient and nursed related adverse outcome events.