Nursing paper
District Nurses’ Perceptions of the Concept of Delegating
Nancy Starrett
Chamberlain College of Nursing
NR 101: Transition into Nursing
Winter A 2015
District Nurses’ Perceptions of the Concept of Delegating Delegation is critical in the nursing field. You need to know what tasks can be delegated and to whom. As a certified nursing assistant I am one of the many people who are delegated tasks regularly from someone higher in charge, such as a nurse. The nursing journal read was on the delegation of medication administration from nurses to nursing aids in the home health care setting. First I will explain why nurses would delegate such an important part of patient care and then how nurses are still able to get away with it. Between April and August 2009, a group of 20 nurses were analyzed on what they delegated to in home nursing aids. The results showed to be the improper practice as the nurses were having the nursing aids dispense medication to the client. While the nurses found it imperative to be able to be available and trustworthy for the aids, their lack of time would push them to delegate the improper task of administering medication (Craftman, Strauss, Rudberg, & Westerbotn, 2013). Allowing someone without the proper education to give medications puts the nurse, nursing aid, and the client in danger. It is the responsibility of both the nurse and nursing aid to know what their limitations they have. A nursing aid doesn’t have the education needed to understand how medications works with the body and giving them to the client without complete knowledge could cause dire effects such as hospitalization or death. “The statutes regarding delegating medicine tasks are also cumbersome and difficult to incorporate for district nurses who are responsible for the delegation” (Craftman et al., 2013, p. 569). This means that for an overworked nurse who delegated medication administration to a nursing aid has little chance of being caught,
Nancy Starrett
Chamberlain College of Nursing
NR 101: Transition into Nursing
Winter A 2015
District Nurses’ Perceptions of the Concept of Delegating Delegation is critical in the nursing field. You need to know what tasks can be delegated and to whom. As a certified nursing assistant I am one of the many people who are delegated tasks regularly from someone higher in charge, such as a nurse. The nursing journal read was on the delegation of medication administration from nurses to nursing aids in the home health care setting. First I will explain why nurses would delegate such an important part of patient care and then how nurses are still able to get away with it. Between April and August 2009, a group of 20 nurses were analyzed on what they delegated to in home nursing aids. The results showed to be the improper practice as the nurses were having the nursing aids dispense medication to the client. While the nurses found it imperative to be able to be available and trustworthy for the aids, their lack of time would push them to delegate the improper task of administering medication (Craftman, Strauss, Rudberg, & Westerbotn, 2013). Allowing someone without the proper education to give medications puts the nurse, nursing aid, and the client in danger. It is the responsibility of both the nurse and nursing aid to know what their limitations they have. A nursing aid doesn’t have the education needed to understand how medications works with the body and giving them to the client without complete knowledge could cause dire effects such as hospitalization or death. “The statutes regarding delegating medicine tasks are also cumbersome and difficult to incorporate for district nurses who are responsible for the delegation” (Craftman et al., 2013, p. 569). This means that for an overworked nurse who delegated medication administration to a nursing aid has little chance of being caught,