National Health Care Skill Standards.

This booklet contains draft national health care skill standards that were proposed during the National Health Care Skill Standards Project on the basis of input from more than 1,000 representatives of key constituencies of the health care field. The project objectives and structure are summarized in the introduction. Part 1 examines the need for health care skills standards; Part 2 summarizes the research methodology used during the project. Part 3 lists the proposed standards, examines their relationship to the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills competencies, and explains their purpose/scope. The standards are grouped as follows: health care core standards (academic foundation, communication, systems, employability skills, legal responsibilities, ethics, safety practices, interpersonal dynamics); therapeutic/diagnostic core standards (health maintenance practices, client interaction, intrateam communication, monitoring client status, client movement); therapeutic cluster standards (data collection, treatment planning, implementing procedures, client status evaluation); diagnostic cluster standards (planning, preparation, procedure, evaluation, reporting); information services cluster standards (analysis, abstracting and coding, systems procedures, documentation, operations); and environmental services cluster standards (environmental operations, aseptic procedures, resource management, aesthetics). Part 4 lists major activities slated for the next phase of the project, and part 5 lists the members of various committees. (MN)