Assignment Task: Respond to the following:
#1
I chose to discuss situation where a nurse manager was held legally responsible for their actions based on assignment, delegation, and supervision. In the case of Johnson v. Missouri State Board of Nursing (2004), Teresa Johnson was a nurse manager who was held legally responsible for failing to ensure proper staffing, supervision, and delegation at a nursing home which resulted in multiple resident deaths.
Nurse Managers have an important role in maintaining adequate staffing, safe care environments, ensuring appropriate assignments, and supervising them appropriately. They need to ensure nurses have enough experience to be able to care for certain patients safely when making their assignments and delegating certain tasks, and they need to supervise in case someone needs help and to prevent harm from occurring. Knowing something has occurred but continuing to no change or monitor safely led to unmet professionally standards and harm to patients. Nurses in these situations should advocate for themselves and their patients, and nurse leaders should listen and make changes to maintain a safe environment. Nurses and leaders both have a large deal of responsibility, and communication and change can lead to safe and positive work environments. The nurse manager failed to ensure that tasks were assigned to staff members who were competent and prepared to provide safe care. This lack of proper delegation and supervision contributed to inadequate patient care and adverse outcomes, including multiple resident deaths. Two things I would incorporate is use of a nurse educator, as utilizing travel agency nurses can bridge the gap of short staffing but the nurse educator is a good tool to help ensure nurses are appropriately trained and can also lend a hand when needed. Another I would use is debriefs for open communication. If nurses notice something that needs changed, they have an opportunity to discuss it with the team as a whole to promote positive and safe change. Need Assignment Help?
Johnson v. Missouri state board of nursing, Justia Law. (n.d.).
#2
Delegation allows nurses to manage workloads efficiently and ensure patient care needs are met, but it must comply with legal and professional standards. One real scenario that comes to mind, that occurred at my previous facility, left a patient needing to be transferred to the critical care unit due a delegated task to an unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) by a registered nurse (RN). The RN delegate a med pass to a UAP which lead the nurse leaders getting involved due to a negligence claim. The RN did not abide by the five rights of delegation which led to patient harm and legal issues. The role of the nurse leaders, in this case, includes conducting a root cause analysis (RCA), asses competency, provide training, and in severe cases initiate disciplinary action. Nurses have legal accountability, ethical responsibility, and professional repercussions from wrongfully delegating tasks. Nurse leaders, on the other hand, have organizational accountability, oversight responsibility, and legal exposure. Both the nurse and the nurse leader will be impacted by this event. The nurse is directly impacted while the nurse leader is indirectly impacted.
The nurse who delegated the task broke several rights of Delegation. The nurse broke right task, right person, and right supervision/evaluation. First of all the UAP is not a licensed personnel and cannot medicare patients. Adherence to the five rights of delegation serves as a guiding framework that ensures tasks carried out safely (Tooman, 2024). The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) Guidelines offers the five rights of delegation and best practices. Along with the NCSBN, nurses can use their State's Nurse Practice Act (NPA) which outlines legal accountability for delegation