Care coordinator assistants: Job satisfaction and the importance of teamwork in delivering person-centered dementia care

As the prevalence of persons with dementia increases, a larger, trained, and skilled healthcare workforce is needed. Attention has been given to models of person-centered care as a standard for dementia care. One promising role to deliver person-centered care is the care coordinator assistant. An inquiry about care coordinator assistant's job satisfaction is reasonable to consider for retention and quality improvement purposes. We evaluated care coordinator assistants' job satisfaction quantitatively and qualitatively. This study was part of a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Health Care Innovation Award to the Indiana University School of Medicine. Sixteen care coordinator assistants, predominately female, African American or Caucasian, college graduates with a mean age of 43.1 years participated. Care coordinator assistants wrote quarterly case reports to share stories, lessons learned, and/or the impact of their job and completed the revised Job Satisfaction Inventory and Job in General scales during the second year of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services award. For the Job Descriptive Index subscales promotion, supervision, and coworkers and Job in General, care coordinator assistants scored similar to normative means. Care coordinator assistants reported significantly higher satisfaction on the work subscale and significantly lower satisfaction on the pay subscale compared to normative data. Care coordinator assistants completed 119 quarterly case reports. Job satisfaction and teamwork were recurring themes in case reports, referenced in 47.1% and 60.5% of case reports, respectively. To address the demands of increasing dementia diagnoses, care coordinator assistants can constitute a compassionate, competent, and satisfied workforce. Training care coordinator assistants to work together in a team to address the needs of persons with dementia and caregivers provides a viable model of workforce development necessary to meet the growing demands of this population.