The article, “Perspectives on the Delegation of Hygienic Care in the Context of Home Nursing: A Qualitative Study,” is written by Dumitrescu et al. In this article, the authors conduct a study to determine how hygienic care delegation takes place in-home nursing (Dumitrescu et al., 2018). In today’s healthcare systems, practices have evolved, including attending to patients in their homes. Similarly, nurses’ roles have changed to include delegating care to health care assistants, and hygiene is considered a vital component of nursing. The authors focused on understanding personal care, exploring home nurses’ experience concerning the delegation, and determining criteria that home nurses use to delegate or monitor services. The key points to be covered in this paper include professional delegation, hygienic care, and barriers to providing better care.
Professional delegation refers to a process by which a healthcare worker who owns legal authority to carry out controlled acts transfers their authority to another person. In most cases, nursing diagnostic practices are the basis for personal care delegation. From the study, the authors mention that the most common approach involves assessing a person’s situation and needs per the diagnosis or nursing indicators (Dumitrescu et al., 2018). During delegation of nursing tasks, it is reported that the person who authorizes remains accountable despite the personal care involved. Authors report that the most common criterion for delegation used is a close collaboration between care providers.
Hygienic care refers to a cyclical care process where nurses continually invest in relationships with patients, assess their needs, and take necessary actions. The care process at home and its delivery should be mutually agreed upon with patients considering the environment or lifestyles. The author reveals that the decision to delegate hygienic care depends on assessments of patients’ needs using indicators or diagnoses (Dumitrescu et al., 2018). In nursing practice, hygienic care is essential and should be delated to assistants with apparent supervision.
Delegation of personal care can be hindered by factors such as financial and legal constraints identified by the authors (Dumitrescu et al., 2018). Care from community services incurs expenses to patients such that they might refuse services because the national insurance caters to nursing care at home. Also, community support and home care nursing have different jurisdictions: hence, the former cannot be integrated by the home nursing team, and a lack of proper supervision occur impeding communications
Personal care is a vital component of in-home nursing, and it is the basis on which professionals can establish positive relationships with patients, families, and the community. In my experience, home nursing care does not improve without the development of trust between patients and professionals. Once a bond has been established, it becomes possible to add value through observation, assessments, and evaluation of situations from a nursing perspective. However, effective delivery of personal care cannot be met with inappropriate delegations. For example, from a professional experience, I have witnessed situations where nurses failed to meet outcomes due to delegation of tasks that required too much supervision. From my perspective, effective delegation of hygienic care should be done while utilizing the five basic rights: right tasks, circumstances, person, supervision, and communication.
To conclude, this paper addressed professional delegation, hygienic care, and barriers to better care as key points identified in the article. Personal care should be delegated under well-defined conditions, bearing in mind that trust-building and collaboration are of significant importance for patients’ wellbeing. Hence for home nursing to be effective, appropriate delegation needs to be considered since it will determine the quality of service patients might receive.
Reference
Dumitrescu, I., De Vliegher, K., Maigre, A., Peters, E., Putzeys, D., & Cordyn, S. (2018). Perspectives on the delegation of hygienic care in the context of home nursing: A qualitative study. British Journal of Community Nursing, 23(5), 240-247. Web.