Chapter 23 Legal Implications in Nursing Practice
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45 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 active listening | Listening attentively with one's whole being— mind, body, and spirit. |
| administrative law (also known as regulatory law) | Law created by administrative bodies such as State Boards of Nursing when they pass rules and regulations. |
| assault | Unlawful threatening or inflicting of harm on another. |
| battery | Legal term for touching of another's body without consent. |
| civil laws | Protect the rights of individual persons within or society and encourage fair and equitable treatment among people. Laws established by a nation or state for its own jurisdiction. |
| common law | Law that is created by judicial decisions as opposed to law created by legislative bodies (statutory law). |
| criminal law | Law of crimes and their punishment. |
| defamation of character | Harm of the reputation of a person by libel or slander. |
| felony | Crime of a serious nature that carries a penalty of imprisonment of greater than 1 year or death. |
| libel | Written false statement about a person that may injure that person's reputation. |
| living wills | Instruments by which a dying person makes wishes known to caregivers; a living will has no legal validity in most states. |
| malice | Spirit with which the person publishing information knows it is false and publishes it anyway or publishes it with reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of the statement. |
| malpractice | Injurious or unprofessional actions that harm another. |
| misdemeanor | Lesser crime; penalty is usually a fine or imprisonment for less than 1 year. |
| negligence | Careless act of omission or commission that results in injury to another. |
| regulatory law (also known as administrative law) | Law created by administrative bodies such as State Boards of Nursing when they pass rules and regulations. |
| risk management | System of ensuring appropriate nursing care that attempts to identify potential hazards and eliminate them before harm occurs. The steps involved include identifying possible risks, analyzing them, acting to reduce the risks, and evaluating the steps taken. |
| slander | Utterance of a false statement about another that harms that person's reputation. |
| statutory law | Of or related to laws enacted by a legislative branch of the government. |
| tort | Act that causes injury for which the injured party can bring civil action. |
| intentional torts | Willlful acts that violate another's rights, such as assault, battery and false imprisonment. |
| occurrence reports | Provides a database for further investigation in an attempt to determine deviations from the Standards of Care, corrective measures needed to prevent recurrence and to alert risk management to a potential claim situation. |
| privacy | Privacy is the right of clients to keep information about themselves from being disclosed. |
| confidentiality | Privacy; a nurse must maintain the confidentiality of information related to a client's health care. |
| presence | Person-to-person encounter that conveys a closeness and sense of security. |
| standard of care | Minimum level of care accepted to ensure high quality of care to clients. Standards of care define the types of therapies typically administered to clients with defined problems or needs. In a malpractice lawsuit, nursing standards of care measure nursing conduct and determine whether the nurse acted as any reasonably prudent nurse would act under the same or similar circumstances. |
| incident reports | Tools used in risk management to report an accident or a deviation from policies or prescribed orders involving clients, employees, or visitors. |
| Nurse Practice Acts | Statutes enacted by the legislature of any state that delineate the legal scope of the practice of nursing within the geographical boundaries of the jurisdiction. |
| informed consent | Process of obtaining permission from a client to perform a specific test or procedure after describing all risks, side effects, and benefits. |
| Americans with Disabilities Act | (1990) a very broad civil rights stature. It protects the rights of disabled people. It is also the most extensive law on how employees must treat health care workers and clients infected with HIV. |
| Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) | Provides that whena client comes to the ER or the hospital, an appropriate medical screening occurs within the hospital's capacity. If an emergency condition exists, the hospital is not to discharge or transfer the client until the condition stabilizes. Exceptions include if the client requests transfer or discharge in writing after receiving info on the benefits and risks or if a physician or health care provider certifies that the benefits of transfer outweigh the risks. |
| Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 | Forbids health plans from placing lifetime or annual limits on mental health coverage that are less generous than those placed on medical or surgical benefits. |
| Patient Self-Determination Act (1991) | Requires health care institutions to provide written information to clients concerning the clients' rights under state law to make decisions, including the right to refuse treatment and formulate advance directives. |
| Living Wills | Represent written documents that direct treatment in accordance with a client's wishes in the event of a terminal illness or condition. |
| Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care (DPAHC) | A legal document that designates a person or persons of one's choosing to make health care decisions when the client is no longer able to make decisions on his or her own behalf. |
| Uniform Anatomical Gift Act | An individual who is at least 18 years of age has the right to make an organ donation (defined as a "donation of all or part of a human body to take effect upon or after death." |
| Federal Nursing Home Reform Act (1987) | Gave residents in certified nursing homes the right to be free of unnecessary and inappropriate restraints. |
| False Imprisonment | Occurs with unjustified restraining of a person without legal warrant. |
| Common Negligent Acts | -Failure to assesss and/or monitor, including making a nursing diagnosis -Failure to monitor in timely fashion -Failure to use proper equipment to monitor the client -Failure to document the monitoring -Failure to notify the health care provider of problems -Failure to follow orders -Failure to follow the 10 rights of medication administration -Failure to convey discharge instructions -Failure to ensure dlient safety, especiall thouse who have history of falling, are heavily sedated, have disequilibrium problems, are frail, are mentally impaired, get up in the night, and are uncooperative -Failure to follow policies and procedures -Failure to properly delegate and supervise |
| Physicians' Orders | The physician is responsible for directing medical treatment. Nurses follow physicians' orders unless they believe the orders are in error or harm clients. |
| .Incident or occurrence report | Provides a database for further investigation in an attempt to determine deviations from standards of care and corrective measures needed to prevent recurrence and to alert risk management to a potential claim situation. |
| Key Concepts | Registered nurses and licensed practical nurses are licensed by the state in which they practice; licensing is based on educational requirements, the passing of an examination, and other criteria. The civil law system is concerned with the protection of a person's private rights, and the criminal law system deals with the rights of individuals and society as defined by legislative statutes. |
| A nurse is liable for malproactice if the nurse owed a duty to the client, the nurse did not carry out that duty, the client was injured, and the nurse's failure to carry out the duty caused the client's injury. All clients are entitled to confidential health care and freedom from unauthorized release of information. | Under the law, practicing nurses must follow standards of care, the guidelines of professional organizations, and the written policies and procedures of employing institutions. Nurses who witness consents are responsible for confirming that clients have voluntarily fiven informed consent for any surgery or other medical procedure before the procedure is performed. |
| Nurses are responsible for performing all procedures correctly and exercising professional judgement as they carry out physicians' or health care providers' orders. Nurses follow physicians' or health care providers' orders unless they believe the orders are in error or are harmful to the clients. | Staffing standards determine the ratio of nurses to clients, and if the nurse has to care for more clients than is reasonable, the nurse needs to make a formal protest to the nursing administration. Legal issues involving death include documenting all events surrounding the death and treating a deceased person with dignity. |
| All nurses need to know the laws that apply to their area of practice. Depending on state laws, nurses are required to report possible criminal activites such as child abuse, as well as certain communicable diseases. | Nurses are client advocates and ensure quality of care through risk management and lobbying for safe nursing practice standards. Nurses must file incident/occurrence reports in all situations when someone was hurt. |
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