Delegating Healthcare Assistants

Management of Care requires nursing skill and knowledge necessary to effectively carry out patient care. To effectively carry out patient care, a nurse must develop knowledge and skills in several areas, including: leadership and management; critical thinking, clinical reasoning, clinical judgement; prioritization and time management; assigning, delegating, and supervising; staff education; quality improvement; performance appraisal, peer review, and disciplinary action; conflict resolution; and resource management. This paper will focus on the importance of delegating to healthcare assistants.

Delegating is the practice of transferring the authority and responsibility to another team member to carry out a task, while maintaining accountability

In other words, “without effective delegation, an organization might potentially come to a complete standstill” (Porter-O’Grady & Malloch, 2016). Therefore, learning appropriate delegation to healthcare assistants such as “health care support workers, assistant practitioners and healthcare assistants” (Bryant, 2015) is vital in the delivery of safe, effective, quality patient care.

Nurses must delegate appropriately in order to ensure that patients achieve safe, quality care via using nursing judgement. For example, the nurse must know that he/she can only delegate tasks appropriate for the skill and education level of the healthcare assistant who is receiving the task unlike nursing process, patient education, or assignments that require clinical judgment. It is the nurse’s responsibility to also provide well-defined instructions when a task is delegated and to periodically reassess and evaluate the outcome of the task. Studies

For example, it was observed that there were misunderstanding between registered nurse and licensed practical nurse scopes of practice in long-term care facilities. Registered nurses and licensed practical nurses have comparable responsibilities in patient care. However, there are distinctions between the two scopes of practice related to critical thinking skills, care planning, nursing scope of practice, education, and generally responsibilities. For instance, registered nurses cannot delegate the nursing process, patient education, or assignments that require clinical judgment to licensed practical nurses. It is understood that licensed practical nurses center more on completing fundamental tasks like observing patient’s critical signs, heart rate, and blood pressure. Largely, licensed practical nurses does not work by themselves, rather they are always supervised by a registered nurse. Yet, it was observed that the lines between registered nurse and licensed practical nurse scopes of practice in long-term care facilities had become blurred when a licensed practical nurse was seen administering medication intravenously to a patient independently. According to stated standards, regardless of the degree of delegation, registered nurses are responsible for the administration and clinical management of intravenous