The Roles And Responsibilities of A Nurse

The nursing profession has changed drastically over time. The roles and responsibilities that nurses take on have increased and become far more complicated. Nurses are managers, leaders, supervisors and have become experts in many areas of care. Every day nurses are faced with the task of improving and strengthening professional leadership within their work environment. Managing good quality and eliminating risk is the major challenge in health care. All members of the team must work together to accomplish outstanding patient care. Budget cuts and nursing shortage in all areas of health care leads to less licensed staff, where use of unlicensed personnel have been used widely, where delegation is not an option, but a necessity. Nurses must be aware of delegation guidelines, what tasks to delegate,when to delegate for the safety of patients, liability of nurses and the facility.

There are many themes that present in literature about delegation. American Nurses Association(ANA) defines delegation as the transfer of responsibility for the performance of a task from one person to another. The National Council of State Boards of Nursing(NCBSN) defines delegation as transferring to a competent individual the authority to perform a selected nursing task in a selected situation. I think delegation is a skill that needs to get proficient. Kleinman and Saccomano(2006) state that the nurse must be taught delegation skills, both in academic and clinical settings. The use of unlicensed assisted personnel(UAP) or licensed practical nurse(LPN) is essential in todays health care because of the increased acquity of patients and increased custom-service approach.

According to Plawecki and Amrhein (2010) , delegation is ...

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...or three nurses. I always make sure the duties I delegate it can be done or if it is too much,I also help in need. I also make sure I thank them for the tasks they have done by evaluating and giving feed backs. This way I tries to maintain a good relationship with them ,also critically think how can tasks done in a efficient manner for the safety of the patients. I support the literature that delegation is a learned skill.

Overall delegation is get familiar with the national guidelines,state guidelines, job descriptions,scope of practice being accountable and responsible for the tasks who delegated. Nurses need good critical thinking skills, respect, trust for one another to maintain good relationships and to realize we are a team. This way any nurse can delegate with confidence.

Works Cited

wisconsin state board of nursing

national council boadr of nursing