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Lester W. I’m being sued! How assured are you that your documentation will defend you?. Offered at: American Nephrology Nurses Affiliation Nationwide Symposium; Could 7-10, 2023. Palm Springs, Calif.
Disclosures:
Lester experiences no related monetary disclosures.
Key takeaways:
- Pristine data don’t preclude a nurse from being sued by a affected person for malpractice.
- Steps may be taken to restrict the danger of a lawsuit.
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Even with detailed data on how care is supplied to a affected person, there isn’t any assure a nephrology nurse won’t be sued by a affected person for malpractice, a speaker stated right here.
“There may be nothing you are able to do to utterly preclude you from being sued or being named as a defendant in a medical malpractice lawsuit,” Wendy Lester, MSN, RN, CNN, stated throughout a presentation on the American Nephrology Nurses Affiliation Nationwide Symposium. “There is no such thing as a magic bullet.”
Pristine data don’t preclude a nurse from being sued by a affected person for malpractice. Picture: Adobe Inventory.
Lester acknowledged that, in some circumstances, sufferers do have a authentic motive to sue their caregiver. “I’m not saying there will not be authentic circumstances on the market as a result of, sadly, there are,” Lester stated. “It’s tough to know why sufferers sue and what motivates them.” Restricted analysis has proven that the majority sufferers wish to sue as a result of “they wish to stop the same incident from taking place once more, they wish to understand how and why the harm occurred, they need monetary compensation for any losses and for future care, they usually wish to maintain their well being care crew or well being care suppliers accountable,” Lester stated.
Legislation companies that concentrate on private harm have develop into accustomed to the dialysis course of and overtly promote on their firm web sites that offering remedies has the potential for errors. However Lester stated variance on how sufferers are handled doesn’t essentially imply there’s negligence or malpractice. “I get a number of circumstances of affected person falls within the dialysis unit,” Lester stated. “Are all falls an indication of negligence? Are you able to stop all falls? After all not. Even with all of the measures you could take to mitigate that danger, sufferers, sadly, nonetheless fall. It doesn’t all the time imply it’s negligence.”
Malpractice
For a malpractice declare to be filed in opposition to a member of the medical employees or the dialysis supplier, 4 components have to be in place, Lester stated. “The primary is you must set up an obligation,” Lester stated, “so a nurse-patient relationship involving a employees member caring for a affected person” qualifies as an obligation, Lester stated.
The opposite components embrace “when a breach happens, and an individual’s conduct fails to fulfill the relevant customary of care. That breach causes the harm,” Lester stated, “after which there are the precise accidents themselves. These accidents may be bodily or emotional.
“So all 4 components have to be current to ensure that a lawsuit to be filed.”
Lester stated that nurses who’re served ought to restrict the variety of folks they discuss to concerning the case. “Bear in mind that any conversations you will have apart from along with your lawyer will not be protected by the attorney-client privilege,” Lester stated. “Discussions concerning the case along with your colleagues is a giant no-no … Don’t discuss to anybody about it.”
Documentation
Lester prompt to attendees that they overview suggestions from the American Nurses Affiliation (ANA) on the best way to preserve good documentation involving interactions with sufferers. “The important thing to good data are that they need to be accessible and that they’re correct, related and constant,” Lester stated, citing the ANA doc. “They must be auditable, clear, concise and full,” Lester stated. “They must be legible and readable. Documentation must be considerate, well timed, contemporaneous and sequential,” Lester stated, “and needs to be aligned with the nursing course of and replicate alignment with evaluation, planning, implementation and analysis.”
“Lastly, documentation needs to be retrievable,” Lester stated. “It doesn’t enable you or your sufferers if you may’t discover what you’re in search of.”
American Nephrology Nurses Affiliation Nationwide Symposium
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