NR 395 Week 5 Discussion Topic
What principles do you use when delegating to unlicensed personnel? Because the licensed nurse is liable for care
... [Show More] performed by an unlicensed person, how do you protect yourself and your patients?
ANSWER
In nursing school, we were taught the 5 Rights of Delegation, being “1. The right task 2. Under the right circumstances 3. To the right person 4. With the right directions and communication; and 5. Under the right supervision and evaluation” (NCSBN.org, pg. 2). Tasks that are delegated to unlicensed personnel are based on the nurse’s judgement on whether or not the person is suited to complete the job and if it is in their job description to do so. Nurses place their license at risk when delegating inappropriately to unlicensed personnel. Huston expands on such tasks that would fall under tasks to delegate, “the UAP may complete non-nursing functions such as bathing the patient, taking vital signs, and measuring and recording intake and output, it is the RN who must analyze that information using highly developed critical thinking skills and then use the nursing process to see that desired patient outcomes are achieved” (Huston, pg. 100). Any task that requires assessment of data, administration of medications, or evaluating patient’s status are reserved to nurses, however tasks like acquiring vitals for a critical patient for the nurse to assess are in the proper scope of practice.
I had worked for 3 years as a patient care assistant (unlicensed personnel) prior to achieving my nursing license, so I had first hand experience of being delegated to and understand the role of our patient care assistants on our floor. As a patient care assistant, we cleaned the patients, fed patients, changed the bedding, took vital signs, checked glucose levels, and would collect stool and urine samples for the nurses to send to lab. We were able to get blood from the lab for transfusions as well. Patient care assistants are able to do actions while nurses supervise and evaluate the results of the actions. Now being a nurse, if I feel that a task that I need to be done is not a job for a patient care assistant, I ultimately do it myself to ensure that it gets done correctly. In doing this, I do take more roles on that I should, but it is to make sure it is done and done right the first time, or I can show the patient care assistant the task so that in the future, they understand what I am asking for. Delegation is a form of trust and understanding of the task and person with whom you give the task to.
-Karina
References:
National Council of State Boards of Nursing. (2019). Joint Statement on Delegation. Retrieved from https://www.ncsbn.org/Delegation_joint_statement_NCSBN-ANA.pdf
Huston, C.J. (2017). Professional nursing: Challenges and opportunities (4th ed). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer [Show Less]