Training Standards for Personal Care Aides: Spotlight on Iowa

In Iowa, training requirements for personal care aides are minimal compared to training requirements for home health aides and nursing assistants. Since 2006, Iowa’s long-term care leaders have been striving to create a competency-based training and certification system that spans all direct care workers and ensures high-quality care across populations and settings. While state lawmakers haven’t enacted training requirements for personal care aides, Iowa’s long-term care leaders have achieved promising results. This report is part of a three-part series focusing on states that have led the way in developing PCA training standards. Specifically, we ask: what was the need for improved PCA training standards in Iowa? How did long-term care leaders address that need? And how did the broader long-term care community react to proposed training standards?