According to state law, the registered nurse is responsibly for each UAP he or she
delegates tasks to. In as much as the duties delegated to the UAP are as basic as possible,
supervision is still required. The first and important role of the registered nurse when
allocating duties is ensuring that the UAP has met the education qualifications and
requirements, his or her possession of strong communication skills, his or her soft and hard
skills and the extent of knowledge on nursing care. This is vital since, in the event of errors,
the delegating Registered Nurse will be held accountable. The registered nurse should
effectively and comprehensively explain to the UAP the tasks to be carried out and also
individual patient concerns that tend to influence the type and nature of care offered to the
patient. The registered nurse should also work closely with the UAP in organizing the
workload to manage time effectively (Calderon-Margalit et al., 2017). The RN should also
comply with the five rights of delegation; right task, right circumstances, right person, right
direction and right supervision or feedback. Last but not least, the RN should be able to
evaluate the task performed by the UAP. This will guide future adjustments and/or additions
when allocating further duties to the UAP (Murphy-Ruocco, 2018).
Delegation of Duties; UAPs and their roles. 4
The ICU Environment.
The Intensive Care Unit is different from General Wards. The ICU environment
contains patients who require critical and special care. These patients need close observation
and monitoring. The patients are critically ill as compared to the ones in the general wards.
Healthcare practitioners operating in the ICU require extensive training in the management of
critically ill patients and handling associated emergencies. The decision the nurse makes
strongly influence the surviving chances of the patient (Calderon-Margalit et al., 2017). The
RN needs to apply vast theories and scientific principles in the management of patients that
are usually taught in Nursing School. For instance, the Nurse requires vast knowledge on
pharmacology to be able to track drug response and also respond to any resulting drug side
and adverse effects. He or she also needs to possess vast knowledge of cardiopulmonary
monitoring since patients in the ICU are in cardiac monitors and life support machines. In
summary, the ICU environment requires intensive and highly qualified care for the patients.
This means that personnel it the Unit have to possess the necessary qualifications to offer this
class of care. Considering this, UAPs may not be the best option for ICUs (Magnusson et al.,
2017). Their training is not as complex and hence, they may not be b able to react to
emergencies or associated upcoming patient issues accordingly. Hence, the delegation of
duties to UAPs is only limited to the General Wards where patients are less ill than in the
ICU, where patients are critically ill and require close monitoring and management from
sufficiently trained and qualified personnel.