Delegating to LPN or LVN

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 2, 2006

here is a list of all the sections of title 16 (the california rn nurse practice act):

http://www.rn.ca.gov/npa/title16.htm#contents - i suggest you look at section 1443.5 which deals with delegation of nursing functions by the rn. it is very vague and indicates that you need to be aware of what each of your subordinates are able to do legally. some of that information is in the faq pages. here is the link to them: http://www.rn.ca.gov/practice/rns.htm on the california bon site. i suggest looking under the link "rn supervision of medical assistants" and "scrub nurse functions by non-rns" to give you an idea of what california allows others without rns to do. also, toward the bottom of the page are links to information about "supervisor's responsibility", "the registered nurse as supervisor", "unlicensed assistive personnel", and "unlicensed assistive personnel acute care". these position statements by the california bon should give you an idea of what rns can delegate to others. as you can see, california doesn't come out and list these things for you--it kind of backs you into what you can delegate by telling you that you need to know what the other practitioners around you are able to do.

here is a link to the california board of vocational nursing and psychiatric technicians

http://www.bvnpt.ca.gov/ (click on laws& regulations at the left side of the page).

hope this information helps you. you might want to try to access the same information on the web sites of other states to see what, in general, matches. remember that the nclex is a test that is given nationwide so any questions you get about delegation are going to be very broad in nature and not state-specific unless the root of a question gives you specific information you need to consider in order to answer the question. it wasn't until about the late 1970's and early 1980's that lpns/lvns were first given legal authority to give medications and perform iv therapy, both with certain restrictions that varied state to state.