Book 00 · Page 2020 / 80

Delegation, assignment and supervision are three different things

Figure brief · not yet drawn

Three lanes showing a task moving from RN to receiver, with an accountability disc that stays at the top in lane one, splits in lane two, and rides a closed loop in lane three.

	DELEGATION	ASSIGNMENT	SUPERVISION
What it is	Transferring authority to perform a selected task in a selected situation to a competent person.	Distributing the care of clients among staff whose own scope already includes that care.	Guidance, direction, periodic observation, evaluation and follow-up after either of the above.
Who gives it	The registered nurse. The task is within the nurse's own scope and is being transferred.	The charge nurse or team leader, usually at the start of a shift.	The registered nurse for delegated work; the charge nurse for assigned work.
Who receives it	Assistive personnel, or a licensed practical or vocational nurse, depending on the task and the state act.	Staff performing work already inside their role and licensure.	Not received. It is performed, and it is not optional.
Who is accountable	The nurse retains accountability for the decision to delegate and for the outcome.	Each licensed person is accountable for the care they personally give; the assigning nurse is accountable for the appropriateness of the distribution.	The supervising nurse is accountable for monitoring and for intervening when performance or client status changes.
What it sounds like	A specific task, a stated expected result, and a reporting parameter.	A client roster.	Checking in, observing a technique, reviewing what was reported back.
The exam trap	Delegating an assessment because it was phrased as a measurement.	Assigning an unstable or newly admitted client to a nurse whose competency for that population is unverified.	Treating supervision as finished once a competent person accepted the task.

All three are governed by the state Nurse Practice Act

The Act defines who may accept what. A rule that is true in one state may be false in the next one over. The exam tests the principle, never any single state's task list, so learn the reasoning rather than a roster.

Margin notehanding it over is the easy part, watching it is the job.

Watch outAssigning an unstable client to an unverified staff member is a failure of the assignment itself, not a failure of that staff member.

TakeawayDelegation transfers a task, assignment distributes clients, supervision follows both, and the registered nurse's accountability survives all three. → BOOK 01 · P19 · → BOOK 03 · P6 · → BOOK 03 · P10