CNA Quality Assurance & Improvement 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A CNA notices a resident's call light has gone unanswered for 20 minutes. What is the BEST initial action?
- Document the incident and move on
- Answer the call light immediately and address the resident's need (Correct answer)
- Report the delay to the charge nurse only
- Wait until the next scheduled check
Correct answer: Answer the call light immediately and address the resident's need
Prompt response to call lights is a core quality indicator; immediate action addresses patient safety and dignity.
Question 2: Which tool is most commonly used in quality improvement to display how often different problems occur in rank order?
- Pareto chart (Correct answer)
- Scatter diagram
- Flow chart
- Control chart
Correct answer: Pareto chart
A Pareto chart ranks problems by frequency, helping teams focus improvement efforts on the most impactful issues.
Question 3: When completing an incident report after a resident fall, the CNA should:
- Include personal opinions about why the fall occurred
- Record only objective facts about what was observed (Correct answer)
- Delay documentation until the next shift
- Share the report details with other residents
Correct answer: Record only objective facts about what was observed
Incident reports must contain objective, factual information to be legally valid and useful for quality improvement.
Question 4: A quality indicator shows that a facility's pressure injury rate has increased over three months. What is the FIRST step in addressing this?
- Immediately change all care plans
- Analyze data to identify contributing factors (Correct answer)
- Discharge high-risk residents
- Stop documenting skin assessments
Correct answer: Analyze data to identify contributing factors
Root cause analysis through data review must precede any intervention to ensure targeted and effective quality improvement.
Question 5: Which of the following is an example of a structural quality indicator in long-term care?
- Rate of resident falls per month
- Staff-to-resident ratio on each shift (Correct answer)
- Percentage of residents with pressure injuries
- Number of complaints filed last quarter
Correct answer: Staff-to-resident ratio on each shift
Structural indicators measure the resources and settings available for care, such as staffing levels.
Question 6: A resident tells the CNA she feels rushed during morning care. The CNA should FIRST:
- Tell the resident the schedule cannot change
- Apologize and report the concern to the charge nurse (Correct answer)
- Ignore the complaint since care was completed
- Document the complaint without informing anyone
Correct answer: Apologize and report the concern to the charge nurse
Resident complaints are valuable quality data; the CNA must communicate concerns to the nurse for follow-up and care plan review.
Question 7: Benchmarking in healthcare quality improvement means:
- Setting the lowest acceptable standard for care
- Comparing a facility's performance to best-practice standards or top performers (Correct answer)
- Measuring only internal performance over time
- Identifying one staff member responsible for poor outcomes
Correct answer: Comparing a facility's performance to best-practice standards or top performers
Benchmarking compares a facility's metrics against recognized standards or high-performing peers to identify improvement opportunities.
CNA Quality Assurance & Improvement 2
A CNA notices a resident's call light has gone unanswered for 20 minutes.
What is the BEST initial action?