If the nurse had assessed the patient she would have concluded that the patient suffers from dry skin. As a result, the safe intervention for the patient would have been to apply lotion to relieve the itching.
Those involved in the process of delegation were the Nurse and the Nursing Assistant. The Nurse delegated to the Nursing Assistant to administer a medication. In addition, the Nurse was involved in prioritization when she decided to focus on her other clients and charting, rather than assessing this patient. My thoughts during this situation were that the Nurse failed at delegating and prioritizing. One of the ethical principles of nursing is nonmaleficence, which is to do no harm. In this case the Nurse is responsible for incorrectly delegating a task to a Nursing Assistant that resulted in her patients fatality. I believe that it is the Nurse's responsibility to correctly delegate and to not act or intervene without directly assessing the situation. In addition, the Nursing Assistant should have known that administering medications is out of her scope of practice and should have refused the Nurse's request. In my opinion every health care personnel is responsible for the patients safety and should be aware of what they can