Importance Of Lpn In Nursing

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Recommended: Purpose of the scope OF PRACTICE FOR NURSES

The acronym LPN stands for Licensed Practical Nurse. What an LPN does varies from state to state. Each state board of nursing regulates what LPN can and can’t do in a state. An
LPN can provide patient care in many different settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, home care, schools and urgent medical clinics. A LPN can also practice many skills under the supervision of a registered nurse. Some of those skills include: administering oral medication, chartings in the medical record of a patient, taking the patients vitals and reporting abnormal to the registered nurse, changing wound dressings, collecting specimens such as blood and urine for lab tests, inserting and caring for urinary catheters, care for ostomies, assisting with …show more content…

An licensed practical nurse may not irrigate a nephrostomy tube because it involves assessment of the tube, the area of skin and assessment of if the sight looks better or worse. Delegation differs between licensed practical nurses and registered nurses. LPN can delegate to other LPN and nursing assistants but can’t delegate higher to a registered nurse. The
LPN must make sure that the other LPN or nursing assistance has the education, legal authority and competency to perform that skills that were delegated. The tasks that are delegated must fall in the job description can be performed safely. Registered nurses can delegate to other registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, nursing assistants. All the delegation needs to be within the scope of practice. The registered nurse must supervise, monitor and evaluation the skills given.

A licensed practical nurse doesn’t make nursing diagnosis. A nurse uses critical thinking
And nursing judgements to assess patients, make independent nursing decisions and make nursing diagnoses. A registered nurse must be able to determine the signs, symptoms and changes of a patient if they are expected or unexpected and especially emergency

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