Conversations about malpractice often focus on the conduct of physicians. Medical doctors have significant authority in the modern health care system and can potentially engage in misconduct or negligence with dire consequences for patients.
However, nurses also fill crucial roles in the modern medical system. They often handle much of the hands-on patient care recommended by physicians. Occasionally, patients or their family members may pursue claims of nursing malpractice against nurses working at a hospital or a similar facility.
What constitutes nursing malpractice?
Nursing malpractice is similar to any other type of malpractice. It involves a failure to meet current best practices and industry standards. Some of the most common forms of nursing malpractice include making mistakes while administering treatment or medication, failing to properly update records and failing to properly monitor patients.
Nursing malpractice can lead to direct harm for patients or may result in them not receiving the care they need to recover. A nurse’s malpractice can cause injury or can lead to other complications, like a doctor misdiagnosing a patient or recommending the wrong treatment.
How is nursing malpractice different from medical malpractice?
Nursing malpractice is a type of professional malpractice, but it differs from physician malpractice. Nurses don’t have a responsibility to diagnose a patient. However, they may be responsible when they fail to properly update medical records or when they do not follow a doctor’s recommendations.
Nurses have a duty to their patients. Those pursuing nursing malpractice claims have to prove that nurses failed to fulfill that duty and that the failure caused harm to the patient. Many nursing malpractice claims stem from negative patient outcomes. Preventable patient deaths are the underlying cause of roughly 40% of malpractice claims brought against nurses.
When a review of healthcare records identifies a nurse as the party responsible for a medication error or other issue that contributed to patient harm, a nursing malpractice lawsuit may be an option. In some cases, co-workers or an employer may also have a degree of liability in a nursing malpractice scenario.
Holding health care professionals responsible for medical malpractice can help affected parties cover their expenses. Successful malpractice claims can also result in disciplinary actions that can lead to the removal of a professional’s licensing or educational requirements so that similar incidents can be prevented in the future.
