The RN and nursing assistive personnel (NAP) are caring for six patients on the pulmonary unit.Which of the following tasks would be most appropriate for the nurse to delegate to the NAP?

A) Taking vital signs on a 56-year-old man with severe dyspnea
B) Suctioning a patient with hemoptysis
C) Encouraging a postoperative patient to use the incentive spirometer
D) Performing chest percussion on a patient with atelectasis

Base your decision to delegate responsibility to nursing assistive personnel (NAP)on your assessment of the patient and the type of care the patient will receive.Consider which tasks are safe to delegate within the skill set of the NAP and how the patient will feel about the care that you have delegated.Incentive spirometry is a method of encouraging voluntary deep breathing by providing visual feedback to patients about inspiratory volume.It is an effective method for promoting deep breathing to prevent or treat atelectasis in the postoperative patient.Incentive spirometry encourages patients to breathe to their normal inspiratory capacities and can be delegated to a NAP.The priority is to maintain or improve the patient's oxygenation and meet the patient's needs.You are ultimately responsible for all the total patient care.In all the other responses the patient is experiencing difficulties that require the nurse's attention: severe dyspnea (difficulty breathing),hemoptysis (bloody sputum),and chest percussion (done by nurses or respiratory therapists).