On the job risks for nurses are real. Even more real are the legal challenges that can come from these risks. Through my  Talk Tuesday Blog  I will discuss different legal risks that results from the responsibilities of our everyday work as nurses and provide you with the tools to arm yourself against nursing negligence and malpractice.  

It would be wonderful to think that nurses do not get sued, however even as the most trusted profession for the past 18 years consecutively according to the Gallup-Poll this is not the case. In 2016 a report from the PA Nurse Service Organization identified that over $90 million has been paid in nurses’ malpractice claims over a five year period https://www.reliasmedia.com/articles/137567-more-nurses-hospitalists-being-sued-for-malpractice-studies-say. 

With the expanding roles and responsibilities of the nurse today, nurses are being held to a high standard. Rightly so. The nurse is a valuable and integral member of the health care team. Nursing is its own profession. Nurses are both autonomous and collaborative in practice. Autonomously, nurses assess, diagnose, plan, implement, and evaluate patients and the care the patient receives. Nurses also manage and direct care responsibilities of others who assist them. As a collaborative partner in care nurses perform delegated responsibilities of the physician and work closely with other members of the health care team. For these reasons, nurses should be held to a high standard.

Nurses, however, should not be afraid to perform in their roles or their duties with a fear of getting sued. Through this ownership series I hope to address these fears by identifying the risk and providing information that is relevant and encouraging of nurses to own their roles and responsibilities by meeting the expectation of a high standard with their own high standard of performance. Therefore, reducing the risk of and protecting themselves against nursing negligence and malpractice.

To do this, I will begin with what nursing negligence and malpractice means and note the difference. 

Negligence requires that the nurse had a duty owed to the patient or client, that this duty was breached, and that harm came to the patient/client as a result of this breach of duty. With negligence there is a failure to exercise the same level of care that a person of ordinary prudence would provide under the same circumstances (Ferrell, 2016). 

Malpractice on the other hand requires that a standard of care was not met (2016). When a nurse is faced with a charge of malpractice, it is because there is question that they did not perform to the standard of care and they will be compared to how another nurse with the same education, training, and experience would act in a similar situation (2016).

Standards for nursing care and practice are established by the American Nurses Association, other professional organizations for nursing specialties, federal and state governing bodies, State Boards of Nursing, current research, literature and scientific evidence. Although introduced and taught in nursing school it is the individual nurse’s professional responsibility to remain up to date in regard to nursing standards of practice and practice accordingly. It is also the responsibility of the nurse to assure organizational policies and procedures are updated to reflect the most current standards of care and practice.

The next Talk Tuesday will focus on ownership in nursing through understanding of the ANA Scopes and Standards of Practice for Nurses. I hope you are excited for this ownership series and that over the next several months will find take-aways and tools to employ in your own nursing practice, building your resilience against any civil or criminal actions against you in your nursing practice career.

I will be presenting this blog series both in written form and video form. So, grab your cup of coffee or tea and join me for my Talk Tuesday Blog the first Tuesday of every month and choose from your preferred method of information delivery.

Talk Tuesday,

The Legal Nurse!