A nurse is caring for a client who was admitted for treatment of a wound. Which of the following tasks should the nurse delegate to an assistive personnel?

Transporting a client for a wound debridement procedure is a non-clinical, logistical task that does not require nursing judgment and is safely within the scope of an assistive personnel. This type of task — moving a client from one location to another — is a routine duty that APs perform regularly and does not involve assessment, teaching, or clinical decision-making. Collecting a wound culture is a clinical skill that requires proper technique to ensure specimen validity and prevent contamination; it must be performed by a licensed nurse or trained clinician. Asking a client to describe their pain level is an assessment activity; while APs can relay that a client reports pain, a systematic pain assessment that requires interpretation and documentation as a nursing assessment belongs to the nurse. Measuring the size of a wound may seem routine but involves clinical judgment about wound characteristics and should be performed by the nurse, especially in a wound-care context where measurements guide treatment decisions. When applying delegation principles, the nurse must consider the nature of the task, the stability of the client, and the potential for harm. Transporting a stable client is the clearest example of a task that meets delegation criteria without posing a risk related to nursing scope.