Core

• Observe patients, charting and reporting changes in patients' conditions, such as adverse reactions to medication or treatment, and taking any necessary action.
• Administer prescribed medications or start intravenous fluids, noting times and amounts on patients' charts.
• Answer patients' calls and determine how to assist them.
• Measure and record patients' vital signs, such as height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, pulse, or respiration.
• Provide basic patient care or treatments, such as taking temperatures or blood pressures, dressing wounds, treating bedsores, giving enemas or douches, rubbing with alcohol, massaging, or performing catheterizations.
• Help patients with bathing, dressing, maintaining personal hygiene, moving in bed, or standing and walking.
• Supervise nurses' aides or assistants.
• Work as part of a healthcare team to assess patient needs, plan and modify care, and implement interventions.
• Record food and fluid intake and output.
• Evaluate nursing intervention outcomes, conferring with other healthcare team members as necessary.
• Assemble and use equipment, such as catheters, tracheotomy tubes, or oxygen suppliers.
• Collect samples, such as blood, urine, or sputum from patients, and perform routine laboratory tests on samples.
• Prepare patients for examinations, tests, or treatments and explain procedures.
• Prepare or examine food trays for conformance to prescribed diet.
• Apply compresses, ice bags, or hot water bottles.