Regulation of Nursing Practice (Table 7-1)
This state law defines the scope of nursing practice and licensure requirements.
What is the Nurse Practice Act?
Failure to act as a reasonable nurse would, resulting in harm.
What is negligence? (p. 153)
This must be obtained before performing procedures to respect patient autonomy.
What is informed consent? (p. 157)
This document is completed after an unexpected event that could harm a patient.
What is an incident report? (p. 162)
A nurse performs a procedure they have never done before without asking for help—this violates this legal safeguard.
What is maintaining competence and seeking supervision when needed?
This organization grants licenses to nurses and enforces disciplinary action.
What is the State Board of Nursing?
Threatening a patient with an injection without consent.
What is assault? (p. 151)
Accurate, timely charting is essential because it serves as this in court.
What is legal evidence? (p. 161)
Incident reports are used primarily for this purpose within healthcare systems.
What is quality improvement/risk management? (p. 162)
A nurse documents “patient doing fine” instead of objective findings—this fails to meet this documentation standard.
What is objective, factual, and complete documentation?
This type of law governs relationships between individuals and includes malpractice cases.
What is civil law?
Performing a procedure without patient consent.
What is battery? (p. 151)
Following institutional policies and procedures helps reduce this legal risk.
What is liability? (p. 161)
This information should NOT be documented in the patient’s chart regarding incident reports.
What is that an incident report was completed? (p. 164)
A nurse posts about a patient encounter on social media without identifiers—this still violates this safeguard.
What is protection of patient privacy/confidentiality?
A nurse administers medication outside their scope of practice—this violates this regulatory concept.
What is scope of practice?
Restraining a patient without proper justification or order.
What is false imprisonment? (p. 152)
This is considered the nurse’s most important legal safeguard.
What is competent practice?
The person who witnessed the incident.
Who completes the incident form? (p. 164)
Seeking clarification when unsure of a patient change demonstrates this safeguard.
What is appropriate monitoring and reporting?
This lists the violations that can result in disciplinary actions against a nurse and also intend to prevent untrained or unlicensed people from practicing nursing.
What is nurse practice act?
A nurse shares false information that damages a patient’s reputation—this is this tort.
What is defamation? (p. 151)
A nurse questions an unusually high medication dose before administration—this safeguard is being used.
What is questioning unsafe or ambiguous provider orders?
A patient falls but is not injured—this still requires an incident report because of this rationale.
What is potential for harm and need for system review? (p. 162)
Verifying patient identity before medication administration helps prevent this type of error.
What is medication error?