Nursing and Principles of Protecting Patient Safety Case Study

Nursing and Principles of Protecting Patient Safety - Case Study Example First, the nurses would electronically sign off on IV bags, for instance, so that they would be available when they were needed, even though they had to be junked sometimes when the situation for their need ceased to be operative, or the doctors changed their minds. There was no procedure in place also to make sure that nurses remembered what they signed for electronically, as they did this at the end of the shift or during their breaks. The redundant electronic and manual entries were procedural elements that led to lapses due to human errors that are understandable given the situation. No, the nurses are not negligent. The procedure is flawed (Brindley, 2010; WHO, 2002; AMA, 2013; Jones, n.d.) It is not below the standard of care to delay the documentation for the documentation, given that this has to take a lower priority in a list of priorities that include spending time with more critical patient-related tasks, such as administering the medications, doing the rounds, and assisting the doctors with patient-related needs. This is an error in a procedure that the nurses were made to go into, and which led to understandable lapses (Brindley, 2010; WHO, 2002; AMA, 2013; Jones, n.d.). The primary consideration is the intent. Do the nurses have an intent to cheat procedures in order to gain personally and to compromise patient safety and outcomes? Is the intent criminal, or are the mistakes and lapses understandable consequences of nurses making mistakes due to flaws in procedures themselves? Are the nurses working in earnest, rather than intentionally cheating in order to gain access to narcotics for their own use? (Brindley, 2010; WHO, 2002; AMA, 2013; Jones, n.d.) The charges the hospital may level against the nurse would be an intentional breach of procedure in order to procure narcotics and cheat the hospital, and criminal intent to compromise patient safety by compromising supplies of vital  narcotics, among many other potential cases.