Prioritization and Delegation in Acute Settings

1 Prioritization and Delegation in Acute Settings The provision of nursing care is a challenging but exciting and rewarding experience.

Nurses practice indifferent settings include acute care settings where they provide appropriate services to the patients. These professionals work in multidisciplinary teams typified by interactions between nurses from different specialties. As an active participant in healthcare delivery, the nurse is responsible for making appropriate clinical decisions. These decisions include prioritization and delegation of tasks to members of the healthcare delivery team.

Although all members of the multidisciplinary team have an active role to play in the delivery of care to clients, the nurse leader has to identify the interventions that can be prioritized and safely delegated to specific members of the team. Prioritization is the aspect of determining the problems that require immediate attention together with the ones that could be delayed until a later time. One of the primary obligations of the registered nurse is to identify cases that need to be attended to immediately and prioritize interventions to achieve a better outcome of patient care.

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2 Incidence Revolving Around Prioritization and Delegation of Duties As a student nurse, I have encountered numerous incidences that require prioritization and delegation of duties to achieve maximum health benefits. In once incidence, I was assigned to the pediatric oncology unit for pediatric rotation. One of the patients required blood transfusion due to severe anemia. The blood transfusion process was supposed to take approximately four hours. The transfusion protocol has it that vitals have to be taken before and after transfusion. Vitals also have to be taken 15 minutes after transfusion is started and hourly until transfusion is over. The clinical nurse delegated the blood transfusion duty to the licensed practical nurse (LPN). The LPN was ordered to work with the patient care assistants (PCAs).

The LPN realized that she could only be present during the first three checks since she had to attend to other duties. The LPN discussed her availability with the patient care assistants and delegated the final three checks to her. Evaluation of the client revealed that his vitals had improved significantly following the transfusion. The parties involved in the delegation of tasks were the LPN, the clinical nurse and the patient care assistant.

Perceptions of the Situation I believe that delegation of duties is integral to the delivery of quality care to patients.

Delegation of duties is essential when dealing with a large number of patients in need of critical care. It establishes a base for the continued delivery of care services as well as monitoring the progress of care (Motacki & Burke, 2016). In the current case, the clinical nurse delegated the task of blood transfusion to the LPN. The LPN was aware of the blood transfusion protocol, but could not carry on with the process to completion due to other obligations. I believe the LPN made the right decision to involve and delegate some of the duties to the patient care assistant.

Forms of Delegation Utilized

3 One of the main forms of the delegation of duties that were utilized in this case is instructional delegation. In this form of delegation, a superior officer provides a junior person with instructions to conduct a certain task on his behalf over a specified period. Another form of delegation demonstrated in this scenario is the creation of a plan of action (Puskar, Berju, Shi & McFadden, 2017). In this case, the team leader is only involved from a high-level perspective.

This is demonstrated by the fact that the clinical nurse delegated the care of the severely anemic patient to the LPN. The LPN was supposed to make all decisions regarding the care of the client.

The delegation approaches selected for this case were effective. These approaches were in line with the five rights of delegation. For instance, the delegation was done to the right people and performed under the right circumstances. The LPN delegated the duty to conduct the last two checks to the PCA since the patient was out of danger. This delegation was done in line with the instruction of the clinical nurse to work with the PCAs. Therefore, the right directions were provided, and the results were evaluated appropriately.

The Outcome of Care in Respect to Delegation and Prioritization Positive results were achieved in this case. Blood transfusion was prioritized since it is the first line of treatment for persons with severe anemia. A team of competent professionals was involved in the care process. The transfusion protocol was adhered to at all levels even after the delegation of duties. The right directions were provided to ensure the delegation process achieved the anticipated outcomes.

Aspects of Delegation to Incorporate into Nursing in the Future There are several aspects of delegation learned from this experience that can be incorporated into nursing practice in the future. One of these aspects is the assignment of responsibility. This is the situation whereby a senior nurse delegates a specific task to junior

4 nurses but provides details of how the task will be performed and the timeframe for the task (Murray, 2017). Another aspect is the creation of accountability, whereby the persons who are delegated duties are held accountable. Accountability helps to ensure that standards, rules and regulations are followed while accomplishing the delegated tasks.

Conclusion Prioritization and delegation of duties are integral aspects of patient care. They establish the base for the provision of quality care to the patient in addition to the continuity of care.

Nurses delegate duties to other nurses to ensure to save time, attend to other patients and eliminate the possibilities of patients being abandoned.

References Alvinius, A. (Ed.). (2017). Contemporary Leadership Challenges. BoD–Books on Demand.

Motacki, K., & Burke, K. (2016). Nursing Delegation and Management of Patient Care-E-Book.

Elsevier Health Sciences.

Murray, E. (2017). Nursing leadership and management: for patient safety and quality care. FA Davis.

Puskar, K., Berju, D., Shi, X., & McFadden, T. (2017). Nursing students and delegation. Nursing made Incredibly Easy, 15(3), 6-8.