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Reporting and Review of Patient Care: The Nurse's Responsibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Barbara F. Katz
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Extract

The guidelines for the nursing staff of a health care facility in Boston include the following statement:

It is the intent of Massachusetts Law that physicians (and their employers when applicable) are ultimately responsible for the practice of medicine. Consistent with the Law it ispolicy that medical orders by the physician members of the staff are to be questioned by other members of the staff only if they are incomplete and inconsistent with accepted standards of practice or there is sound basis for believing that carrying out the orders would cause severe and ineversible ham to the patient. Normally, any questions about the manner in which medicine is practiced are to be brought to the attention of the Executive Director (a nonphysician) through the appropriate coordinators/supervisors. The Director will adequately consider all such questions and take any necessary action.

Type
NLE Rounds
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 76 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1983

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References

Guidelines for Nursing Staff, anonymous health care facility (Boston, Mass.) (1981) (emphasis supplied).Google Scholar
211 N.E.2d 253 (Ill. 1965).Google Scholar
Id. at 258.Google Scholar
333 P.2d 29 (Cal. App. 1958).Google Scholar
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Poor Sisters of St. Francis v. Catron, 435 N.E.2d 305 (Ind. App. 1982).Google Scholar
Id. at 308. See also Toth v. Community Hosp. at Glen Cove, 239 N.E.2d 368, 374 (N.Y. 1968).Google Scholar
Poor Sisters of St. Francis v. Catron, supra note 6, at 305.Google Scholar
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American Nurses' Association, Code for Nurses with Interpretative Statements, §§3.2, 3.3 (1976).Google Scholar
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236 S.E.2d 213 (W.Va. 1977) [hereinafter referred to as Utter].Google Scholar
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See. e.g., Kay Laboratories v. District Court, 653 P.2d 721 (Colo. 1982) (incident reports are discoverable because they are prepared according to hospital routine and before notice of the claim, and are used for many purposes).Google Scholar
For further discussion of the importance of charting, see Greenlaw, J., Documentation of Patient Care: An Often Underestimated Responsibility, Law, Medicine & Health Care 10(3): 125 (June 1982).Google ScholarPubMed
Utter, , supra note 12, at 214.Google Scholar