Legal Aspect of Nursing and the Ethics of Nursing - Case Study Example

and number: submitted: Legal aspect of nursing and the Ethics of nursing Healthcare providers (Nurses, physician, and physician assistants) have tremendous responsibilities. It is tremendously vital for a nurse to be aware of the lawful aspects that supplement delivery of care in the industry of healthcare. Nowadays it is evident that the more negligence cases in the healthcare field, the few individuals who are willing to join the nursing field due to panic of lawful implications and invincible suits that rise during the delivery of nursing services to the patient (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). Therefore, the law of nursing is meant to aide nurses in making decisions in order to prevent incidences that can course legal suits. In addition, law of nursing streamlines the services provided by nurses so that nurses can take liability for malpractices. The law is postulated to protect patients and nurses in delivering nursing care services (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). It is advisable that nurses to familiarize with the Tort Law. Tort law chiefly deals with, negligence, and malpractice cases in the healthcare world. Nurses should be concerned with profound of accepting Tort Law because it creates one of the biggest panics in the medical world. Tort Law defines liabilities and responsibilities of nurses when providing nursing care to the patient. Tort is the wrongful act that generates harm intentionally or unintentionally. Malpractices in nursing are, therefore, a Tort in which nursing principals are not accomplished (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). Hence, Tort Law is the common and known law that all healthcare practitioners are required to adhere to in order to prevent circumstances that may be observed as medical malpractices. (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). For the nurses to protect themselves from legal suits of malpractices, they are indebted to take more precaution when providing nursing care in their everyday shift. Nurses are obliged to make sure there is accuracy in reporting, recording, and documenting on their everyday routines. This creates a common way in which healthcare providers make sure they are on track of offering healthcare services safely (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). In the course of their education, nurses are made to comprehend that patient care is not only making decisions right, but also, organizing and maintaining accurate medical reports and records for the patients. A nurse who does not offer written evidence of the verdict made showing how the decision was attained at should be charged with negligence. Negligence is the failure of nurses to offer care that a sound nurse would use in a similar incidence (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). In this case study, the hospital had enough evidence of suspending the nurse from her duties. By her diverting narcotic drugs, she posed substantial threats to her patient safety and this became a liability to the facility and the acute care department. However, the facility should consider humanistic, regulatory, legal, practical, and ethical considerations in solving the incidence. In addition, the discrepancies between the nurse’s patient electronic data on narcotics and the hand written notation on the paper record, was enough evidence for the nurse to be suspended for incompetence (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). In the court, the plaintiff will be the nurse and the defendant will be the hospital. Before making a verdict whether the nurse’s grievances should be upheld in this case scenario, it is necessary first to look at the nursing ethics that was involved. Ethics is the principals of conduct and moral judgment. There are three key standards of healthcare ethics that was involved in this case scenario; justice, nonmaleficence, and beneficence. Beneficence is the act of promoting and doing well. For the purpose of the healthcare industry, healthcare providers work to stimulate their client’s best interest and struggle to attain best results. In the case study given, with the evidence in hand so far for suspicion, the nurse did not practice beneficence by diverting narcotic drugs and documenting well. The nurse did not consider her client best interests and instead she discriminated her client’s interests (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). Nonmaleficence is the practice of preventing harm. Healthcare providers should sustain a competent repetition level to prevent patient from injuries. In addition, nonmaleficence involves reporting of suspected abuse to avoid more unfair treatment and protecting patients from chemically impaired healthcare providers (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). The nurse was vulnerable to causing harm to her clients as she was chemically impaired from the narcotic drugs if the allegations made by the hospital are true. On the other hand, her fellow nurses did not maintain the principal of nonmaleficence as they did not report the incidence to the higher authority, and this should be put into consideration before ruling. Finally is the principal of justice, justice postulates that all patients be equally and fairly treated. Healthcare practitioners, face issues of justice on their daily shifts when organizing care for their patients and making decisions on how much time they need based on each patient and fair distribution of resources. In the case study, it is clearly that the nurse did not serve justice to her patient by unprofessional documenting between her electronic data narcotic administration and her hand written notation on the paper record. For her selfishness, the nurse did not provide fair treatment to her clients instead she decided to ignore her clients for her own satisfaction (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). Testimonies from her fellow nurses could result in her grievances being upheld or dismissed by the court. On the allegations of late documentation, other nurses testimonies could have lessen the allegation against the nurse as the facility had no policy of manual documentation of narcotics. In addition, from other nurse’s testimonies it is clear that it was not only her who did unprofessional documentation, but also, other nurses did the same thing of not documenting the administration of narcotic drugs on time. This clearly shows that the facility had no policies implemented on how to document the patient’s report, hence makes the facility to be blamed and not the nurse. On the allegation of diverting narcotic drugs, the testimonies could have elaborated nurse’s negligence as medical malpractices thus imposing her to be charged with negligence and thus having the court not upheld her grievances. This is because her and other nurses provided services that were below the standard of care. Hence her and her fellow nurses failed to advocate and care for their patient. This could have led to severe penalty of losing her nursing license (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). Some of the question the facility should address are; 1. How would have her services affected the entire facility? 2. How long has the incident occur? 3. Is there any implemented policies by the facility that is affiliated to documentation of narcotic drugs? These entire questions could help the facility prove their point of suspending the nurse and initiating the lawsuit against the nurse. What about other nurses, did they sustain all the ethics of nursing and legal aspects? Based on their testimonies of being late on their documentation they did not comply with regulation and rules of nursing practice. Their service was below standard of care; hence they showed negligence in their services. When the nurses documented their work late they showed practice of negligence to the patient. Even though there was no policy of documenting the narcotics drugs on the paper, as nurses they should be prudent and do the right thing. Failing to document the medical administration, it can lead to medical errors, unfair distribution of resources among patients, and administration of wrong medicine, hence causing injuries or death to the patients. Documentation is the key principle to communicate a patient’s information among nurses and physician. Thus, the nurses should accurately document the medical administration for their patients to prevent medical injuries to the patients. Should the facility implement policy of manual documenting of narcotic drugs? The facility management has the responsibility, to make sure that there are security systems to prevent diversion and provide patients safety if nursing deficiency is alleged as a result of diverting narcotic drugs. Therefore, the facility should revise the old policies and implement more advanced policies on manual documenting of narcotic drugs. All the management and staff should be included in the enactment of these policies. This will assist in postulating fair and effective policies that will promote the ethics of nursing and legal aspects of nursing among all healthcare practitioners in the facility (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). From a personal perspective and judgment, the nurse should be guilty of negligence and medical malpractice. Since the nurse broke the nursing ethics and legal aspects, the court of law, should dismiss her grievances and revoke her nursing license. In this case study if the allegations against the nurse are legit then the nurse broke public law. Public law is postulated to defend the public. When these laws are broken healthcare providers should be fined, and lose their license. In all states, nurses are equipped by regulation and rules postulated by nursing practice act as stipulated by the legislature (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). Diverting of narcotic drugs is a crime against the state and, therefore, her license should be provoked and imprisoned. Such an incident should be filed in public court of law. Public court of law deals with cases of an individual’s relationship against the state. The nurse committed a crime against the state by diverting narcotic drugs, and she should be penalized by the public court of law (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). Should the incidence be reported to the board of nursing BON in the state? Of course, the BON should be informed immediately. For nurses to be approved for employment as nurses, they must be licensed by BON. BON oversees and regulates nursing practice within the territory of the states (Barbara, and Phillips, 2013). By reporting this incidence to BON, the body of BON will enforce the nurse practice act and the law which regulates nurse in the facility. This will help in preventing any further illegal activities among the nurses of that facility. In conclusion, legal aspects and ethics of nursing in the industry of healthcare care are extremely vital to all healthcare practitioners. They are provided in the education system, and every healthcare practitioner must uphold them in their entire healthcare career. Academic and individual skills are tremendously essential for one to be hired as a nurse, although, they do not outdo the knowledge in medical laws. Legal aspects define the limit of nursing liability as long as the malpractices are the apprehensive. Reference Barbara C. and Phillips P. (2013). Nursing Professionals: Avoiding Potential Legal Issues. Read More