Elements of a Medical Malpractice
In the last five years, the cases of nursing negligence and malpractices has risen to an alarming rate. This is according to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. We as nurses should be concerned about this rate because as medical professionals, malpractices in nursing and nurse negligence is very much taken into consideration during our lecture discussions and clinicals back in nursing school. The only difference is that working today as a licensed nurse will not give your clinical instructor half the blame because in the fisrt place, youre on your own already.
Nursing malpractice can be generally defined as negligence on the part of a Nurse which causes physical or emotional damage to a patient or client under their care. This includes failure to do appropriate nursing care at a certain time, surgical assisting mistakes, mistakes in delivering of a child (for nurse midwives), mistakes with medications, or causing any loss or injury by not performing professionally. Nursing malpractice is limited to negligence which occurs in the course of medical or health care, and the basic legal issues involved in medical malpractice are the same as the legal elements in common neglect.
There are 4 elements of Nursing Malpractice:
Standards of Care:
This refers to the norms that experience and history implied as the "right thing to do at the right time". In general, its what a reasonably prudent nurse would do in a similar situation and given the same circumstance. An example would be a nurse giving a patient oxygen therapy via face mask when she noticed the O2 saturation was below normal level and there was a doctor's order for such actions to be done.
Nursing Care Plans help nurses define the most commonly encountered clinical problems and its symptoms, then offer guidelines for performing ongoing assessment and therapeutic interventions. Care Plans assist the nurse in the development, deliverance, and documentation of patient care in order to help nurses adhere to the most current practice and professional standards in nursing.
Some nursing malpractice mistakes might be the following:
* Failure to secure an informed consent from a patient prior to a surgical procedure
* Misuse of a medical equipment
* Medication error
* Documentation error
* Failing to perform necessary procedure
The best defense that a nurse could ever have is the patient's chart. Remember the old nursing cliche that goes like "If you didnt chart it, you didnt do it"? This might well be your life saver from a nursing legal lawyer or attorney. So always remember to chart completely.
Duty:
By accepting the endorsement or referral of a patient from the ER or any other nursing department, the nurse is duty-bound to care for the patient with his or her utmost ability, knowledge and skills. That is pretty well covered in the Good Samaritan law.
Legal Causation:
It is the second major hurdle that must be overcome for a successful malpractice plaintiff. The plaintiff must
establish that had standards of care been follow, the injury or damages to the patient would have been avoided. A legal cause of action for nursing negligence usually exists when it is determined that the breach of the standard of care proximately caused damages, usually physical or emotional in nature to the victim.
And lastly,
Damages:
This is the result of the substantial neglect or malpractice on the part of the nurse. Patient's lawyers and legal consultation attorneys would capitalize on this element so their clients can get a well deserved settlement claim. This includes: death, disability, prolonged pain, deformity, or added cost of hospital stay.
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