Delegating in a Tech-Enhanced
Healthcare Environment

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29 January 2025
4 minutes read
Medically Reviewed by: Dr. Danielle Kelvas, MD

In this technology-driven era, doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals now have more to do than ever. It goes without saying that solutions like electronic health records (EHRs), telehealth platforms, and AI-powered tools have transformed the way healthcare organizations are used to deliver care to patients. However, technology has also made healthcare workflows more complex. Healthcare professionals today face an overwhelming amount of administrative tasks and clinical workloads, ultimately leading to frustration and burnout. This is where the art of delegation-distributing tasks to others smartly and strategically-comes into play.

Key Takeaways:

  • Delegation is a leadership tool that enhances team performance and patient outcomes.
  • Strategically delegated tasks increase job satisfaction and reduce burnout.
  • Technology like EHRs, telehealth, and AI can streamline healthcare workflows but require clear, balanced protocols to guide best practices.
  • Clear guidelines and accountability frameworks help healthcare professionals avoid confusion and deliver better care.

Defining Delegation in a Digital Context

Delegation in healthcare isn’t about offloading tasks that a doctor or nurse finds overwhelming to handle. It’s a means to strategically distribute roles so that every team member works at the top of their skill set. Put simply, delegating tasks means assigning roles and getting tasks done while keeping a good balance between human skills and technology (1).

Why Delegation Matters in Healthcare

In healthcare, delegation has historically revolved around sharing tasks between allied health professionals. But as technology advances, so do delegation strategies. Digital health platforms, clinical decision support systems (CDSS), telehealth solutions, and AI algorithms now shape what and how we delegate (2).

Delegation is all about playing to everyone’s strengths. This simply means letting team members and even technology handle what they’re best at. For example, who is better than nurses for monitoring patients remotely? And isn’t managing schedules and answering calls what medical assistants do best? Meanwhile, software solutions like CDSS can support physicians in their complex decision-making processes by providing them with timely, patient-specific information and flagging critical trends in patient data (1),(3).

Done well, delegation gives doctors and nurses more time to focus on clinical decision-making and patient interactions. With fewer administrative tasks and a lighter workload, healthcare professionals are less likely to experience burnout, feel more satisfied with their jobs, and can provide patients with timely, high-quality care. A study by Mirhoseiny et al. (2019) also found that delegating non-clinical tasks to non-physician health professionals improves outcomes for both patients and providers (4).

That said, we need a clear strategy for smart delegation-one that balances human expertise with technology. According to the American Nurses Association (ANA), effective delegation requires proper supervision, clear guidance, and accountability mechanisms to ensure patient safety (5).

The Art of Delegation in a Tech Enhanced Healthcare Environment

Combining Technology with Strategic Delegation

Healthcare technology is continually evolving, flooding us with new and updated health systems each year. We now have efficient tools that distribute tasks and assign roles based on each team member’s strengths and system capabilities. In fact, solutions like remote patient monitoring, sensors and wearable devices, digital triage systems, and patient portals have already become integral in clinical settings.

That being said, to make the best use of these tools, one must know how to delegate effectively, particularly who handles what. For example, who responds if a home-monitoring device shows a patient’s heart rate dropping overnight? Who checks abnormal lab results when flagged by an automated alert?

Smart delegation ensures that administrative and repetitive duties are delegated to advanced tools or support staff, while tasks that need sound clinical judgment remain with physicians (1),(4).

Keeping Delegation Clear and Simple

Smart delegation in healthcare starts with well-defined protocols and standardized workflows. Everyone must know their roles and responsibilities, as confusion often leads to wasted time and frustration. Without a clear chain of command, even the best technology can fail to perform up to expectations. Therefore, it is often best to create a flowchart to map out responsibilities (1),(6).

A well-structured delegation framework outlines expectations for every team member, ensuring that technology aligns with professional roles. This might include creating explicit guidelines on when a physician should be alerted, how patient data should be documented by nurses, or how physician assistants can handle routine follow-up calls via telehealth platforms (1),(2).

For example, who is responsible for escalating an abnormal vital sign alert from a remote monitoring system? Is it the nurse monitoring the dashboard, the attending physician, or a health assistant? In this scenario, we can select nursing staff to respond to patient-generated alerts first and then, if needed, notify a physician or pharmacist. Such clarity makes it easier for everyone to do their jobs.

References

  1. Moradi, T., Rezaei, M., & Alavi, N. M. (2024). Delegating care as a double-edged sword for quality of nursing care: a qualitative study BMC Health Services Research, 24(1), 592.

  2. Snowdon, D. A., King, O. A., Dennett, A., Pinson, J. A., Shannon, M. M., Collyer, T. A., … & Williams, C. M. (2022). Delegation of patient related tasks to allied health assistants: a time motion study BMC Health Services Research, 22(1), 1280.

  3. Sutton, R. T., Pincock, D., Baumgart, D. C., Sadowski, D. C., Fedorak, R. N., & Kroeker, K. I. (2020). An overview of clinical decision support systems: benefits, risks, and strategies for success. NPJ digital medicine, 3(1), 17.

  4. Mirhoseiny, S., Geelvink, T., Martin, S., Vollmar, H. C., Stock, S., & Redaelli, M. (2019). Does task delegation to non-physician health professionals improve quality of diabetes care? Results of a scoping review. PloS one, 14(10), e0223159.

  5. American Nurses Association. (2012). ANA’s principles for delegation by registered nurses to unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) Silver Spring, MD: American Nurses Association.

  6.  Barrow, J. M., & Sharma, S. (2023). Five rights of nursing delegation. In StatPearls Publishing.

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