The hospital has recently eliminated all nursing assistant positions and has replaced them with unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) to provide patient care. How should the professional nursing staff work with these new employees?
1. Continue to delegate and supervise them as they did with the nursing assistants.
2. Treat the UAPs as independent hospital employees who do not take delegation and supervision from nurses.
3. Realize that UAPs are less skilled than nursing assistants so supervision activities should be increased.
4. Be cautious with delegation because the UAP is working on the license of the professional nurse.
1
Rationale: The professional nurses retain responsibility for delegating and supervising these hospital employees. They are not independent practitioners. The nurses should be aware of the competencies of the UAPs with whom they work, but generally the skill mix between UAPs and NAs is comparable. The UAP does not work "on the license" of the professional nurse.
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