| Course | NSG 321 Advanced Leadership and Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 1 |
| Paper type | Delegation and supervision analysis |
| Length | About 1,080 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | RN to BSN |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NSG 321 Unit 1
What the Charge Nurse Can Hand Off: A Delegation Analysis of One Day Shift on a Medical-Surgical Unit
Student Name
Department of Nursing, Herzing University
NSG 321: Advanced Leadership and Management
Instructor Name
January 22, 2026
What the Charge Nurse Can Hand Off: A Delegation Analysis of One Day Shift on a Medical-Surgical Unit
The Shift and the Team
This analysis uses a composite day shift on a 28-bed medical-surgical unit. I am a registered nurse with a team of six patients, working with one licensed practical nurse (LPN), Maria, who has eight years of experience and is competent with the unit's wound care procedures, and two nursing assistants: Tom, who has worked on the unit for five years, and Jessie, who finished orientation two weeks ago and has not yet been checked off on bedside glucose testing. My six patients include a stable man on the second day after hip replacement, a woman admitted overnight with a new diagnosis of heart failure, a man with dementia and dysphagia on a pureed diet, a woman with diabetes on insulin, a man with a stage 3 sacral pressure injury, and a newly admitted woman with pneumonia who arrived at 7:30 a.m.
The Criteria Applied
The national delegation guidelines describe a process in which the registered nurse assesses the patient, plans care, and delegates specific activities only when they are within the delegatee's role and state-defined scope, the delegatee has been trained and is competent, the patient is stable and the outcome predictable, and the nurse can supervise and evaluate the result (National Council of State Boards of Nursing [NCSBN], 2016). The criteria are often taught as five rights, covering the task and circumstances, the person, clear direction and communication, and supervision with evaluation. Each task below is tested against them in turn.
Tasks Delegated to Nursing Assistants
Vital signs every four hours for the hip replacement patient, to Tom. Right task: routine measurement within an assistant's role. Right circumstances: the patient is stable and the results are predictable. Right person: Tom is experienced. Right directions: I asked Tom to report immediately any systolic pressure below 100, heart rate above 110, or oxygen saturation below 92%, rather than simply recording them. Supervision: I review the values on the flowsheet by 9 a.m. and noon.
Assisting the man with dysphagia to eat, to Tom, not Jessie. The speech-language pathologist's plan specifies a pureed diet, upright positioning, and small spoonfuls. Feeding a patient with a documented plan is within an assistant's role, but it carries aspiration risk; Tom has fed this patient before and knows to stop and call me for coughing or a wet voice. Jessie has not been trained on this patient's plan, so the circumstances are right but the person is not.
Bedside glucose testing for the woman with diabetes: not delegated to Jessie. Glucose testing is within assistants' role on this unit after competency validation, but Jessie has not been validated, so the right-person criterion fails. Tom performs the test, and I arrange for Jessie to complete her validation with the unit educator this week.
Tasks Assigned to the LPN
Wound care for the stage 3 sacral pressure injury, with a documented plan from the wound nurse, to Maria. In our state, dressing changes according to an established plan are within LPN scope, and Maria is competent in this procedure. I remain responsible for evaluating the wound: I will look at it with her at the first dressing change and read her documentation. Scheduled oral medications for the hip replacement patient, to Maria, within her scope. Reinforcing discharge teaching that I have begun for the hip replacement patient, to Maria, since reinforcement of teaching an RN has initiated is within LPN scope in our state, while initiating teaching is not.
Tasks I Kept
The admission assessment of the woman with pneumonia who arrived at 7:30 a.m. Initial assessment establishes the baseline and the plan and cannot be delegated. The initial teaching of the woman with new heart failure about daily weights, sodium, and warning signs, because initiating teaching requires assessment of her understanding and adjustment of the plan, which is an RN function. Evaluation of every patient's status, including the patients whose tasks I delegated. And any task for a patient whose condition becomes unstable: if the hip replacement patient's blood pressure falls, his vital signs are no longer a routine task and I take them back.
How the Directions Were Given
The quality of each delegation depended on how the directions were communicated, so the method is recorded. At the start of the shift, I met Tom, Jessie, and Maria for five minutes at the assignment board, rather than giving instructions in passing. For each delegated task, I stated the patient, the task, the time it was due, what I expected them to report and when, and any limits, such as "stop feeding and call me if he coughs." I asked each of them to repeat the report thresholds back. I told Jessie directly why she would not be doing glucose checks today and when she would be validated, so that the decision would not feel like a judgment on her. At noon we met again for two minutes to check what had been done and whether anything had changed. These short conversations are the supervision the delegation process expects; without them, delegation becomes an assumption that tasks were done correctly.
Accountability After Delegation
When Tom reported at 11 a.m. that the hip replacement patient's blood pressure was 96/60, the task had transferred but the accountability had not. I assessed the patient, found him lightheaded after walking with physical therapy, and notified the surgeon. If Tom had recorded the value without telling me, the gap would have been partly mine, because my direction to report was the safeguard that made delegation safe. Marquis and Huston (2021) describe this as the core of delegation: the nurse who delegates retains accountability for the decision to delegate, for the directions given, and for follow-up. The national joint statement on delegation makes the same point: the delegatee is accountable for performing the task correctly, and the registered nurse remains accountable for the overall care (American Nurses Association [ANA] & NCSBN, 2019).
What the Analysis Shows
Delegation on this shift depended less on the task than on the person and the patient. The same task, glucose testing, was delegable to Tom and not to Jessie. The same patient's vital signs were delegable at 8 a.m. and not at 11 a.m. And the clearest safeguard was the direction I gave, specific values that required a call, which turned delegation from handing off a task into sharing care with a plan.
References
American Nurses Association & National Council of State Boards of Nursing. (2019). National guidelines for nursing delegation [Joint statement]. https://www.ncsbn.org/public-files/NGND-PosPaper_06.pdf
Marquis, B. L., & Huston, C. J. (2021). Leadership roles and management functions in nursing: Theory and application (10th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
National Council of State Boards of Nursing. (2016). National guidelines for nursing delegation. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 7(1), 5-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2155-8256(16)31035-3
Reading the NSG 321 Unit 1 instructions
Unit 1 asks you to analyze delegation and supervision decisions on a shift. Expect to describe the shift and team, explain the delegation criteria, analyze tasks delegated or assigned to each team member, explain tasks you kept, describe how directions were given and discuss accountability after delegation. Many versions use the ANA and NCSBN national guidelines for nursing delegation. Check whether your section expects your state's rules for assistive personnel and LPNs. Accountability for the delegation decision does not transfer, so show what you did when a delegated task returned a concern. The same task can be delegable for one patient and not another, so analyze the circumstance, not the task alone. Directions should be specific, including what to report and when.
Inside the NSG 321 Unit 1 example
The analysis opens with the shift: census, team members and their roles. The criteria section summarizes the five rights from the national guidelines. Three sections then sort tasks by who did them, assistants, the LPN and the RN, with the reasoning for each. The directions section records exactly how instructions were given, including what to report. The accountability section follows one delegated task that turned up a low blood pressure and shows the RN's response. The final section draws the main lesson: the same task, such as glucose checks, may be delegated for a stable patient and kept for an unstable one. Each judgment cites the guidelines or a leadership text.
NSG 321 Unit 1 rubric: what full points look like
Herzing's rubric for a delegation analysis usually covers the description of the shift, accurate use of delegation criteria, analysis of each delegated task, communication of directions, supervision and accountability and writing. Accurate use of criteria is checked task by task, since graders want each decision tested against the five rights. Shift description points reward enough detail to judge decisions. Communication criteria look for specific directions with reporting parameters. Supervision and accountability earn credit for follow-up when a task returned a concern. State scope rules for assistants and LPNs may be scored within accuracy. Clear organization by team member helps the reader. The ANA and NCSBN joint guidelines and Marquis and Huston's leadership text belong in the APA 7 list.
NSG 321 Unit 1 help before you submit
Delegation analyses in Unit 1 often slip by listing tasks and who did them without testing each against the criteria. Another frequent problem is delegating assessment or teaching to assistive personnel, which the guidelines do not allow. Students often forget that accountability stays with the RN. Directions are described vaguely, such as told the aide to check vitals. Supervision is not shown. State rules for LPN scope are ignored. The analysis treats tasks as always delegable or never, without considering the patient. Finally, show a delegated task that returned a concern and what you did, because graders reward evidence that accountability did not end when the task was handed off.
Get a NSG 321 Unit 1 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 1 instructions and the rubric from your NSG 321 classroom, plus the shift and the staffing your analysis works from. We write a custom example that tests each task against the criteria and specifies the supervision, returned in 24 to 48 hours. The first custom sample is free.
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NSG 321 Unit 1 questions, answered
What does it mean that accountability does not transfer?
The task moves and the responsibility for the outcome stays with the delegating nurse. If a delegated task is done poorly or not at all, the nurse who delegated it remains answerable for the patient, which is why competence and supervision have to be assessed before rather than after. Papers that treat delegation as handing something off miss the entire point.
Where do I find what assistive personnel may do?
The nurse practice act and rules for your state, plus your facility's own policy, which can be more restrictive but never less. Scope varies between jurisdictions and textbooks describe a general position rather than yours. Cite the actual source, because an answer correct in one state can be wrong in the next one.
Is competence the same as role?
No, and assuming so is a common error. Two people holding the same certification can differ in whether they have been trained on a particular task, have done it recently, or are competent with this patient's specific situation. Assess the individual, note how you knew, and say what you would check before delegating to somebody unfamiliar.
Where can I find a free NSG 321 Unit 1 sample paper?
The full NSG 321 Unit 1 delegation analysis is free on this page, every task tested against the five rights with the follow-up on a low blood pressure. An analysis built on your own shift can be written on request.
What are the five rights of delegation in nursing?
Right task, right circumstance, right person, right directions and communication, and right supervision and evaluation. This sample applies each to tasks given to nursing assistants and an LPN on a medical-surgical day shift.