No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Nursing Negligence in the Hospital Emergency Department
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 April 2021
Extract
The hospital emergency department- those who receive care there and those who provide it-has changed rapidly in recent years. The number of patients going to emergency departments is steadily increasing, and the care which they seek is not confined to traditional emergency care. More and more patients utilize the hospital emergency department for routine health problems, either as substitutes for personal health care providers or as replacements when their own providers are unavailable.
Physicians, nurses, and other health care providers in the hospital emergency department have changed from generalists to emergency care specialists. The rotating, on-call staff physician serving in a department with low priority is being replaced by the emergency medicine practitioner. Since 1980, the American Board of Emergency Medicine has been certifying physicians qualified in this new specialty, and the Emergency Department Nurses’ Association has been administering an examination for certification in emergency nursing.
- Type
- Nursing Law and Ethics
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1984
References
Mancini, M. R. Gale, A. T., Emergency Care and the Law (Aspen Systems, Rockville, Md.) (1981) at 43–44.Google Scholar
Telephone conversation between the author and the executive director of the Emergency Department Nurses’ Association, Chicago, Ill. May 1984.Google Scholar
Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Hospitals, Accreditation Manual for Hospitals, 1983 (JCAH, Chicago, Ill.) (1982) at 24.Google Scholar
Mancini, & Gale, , supra note 1, at 44, 45, citing American Hospital Association, Emergency Services—The Hospital Emergency Department in an Emergency Care System (American Hospital Association, Chicago, Ill.) (1972) at vi.Google Scholar
458 N.E.2d 1072 (Ill. App. 1983).Google Scholar
Id. at 1075.Google Scholar
Id. al 1074–75.Google Scholar
Id. at 1078.Google Scholar
The “strict locality” rule, undergoing considerable judicial erosion, requires a physician to be held to the standard existing in his own community. Recognizing that this rule could prevent a plaintiffs success because a community could have a standard which is, itself, negligent, or that a conspiracy of silence could develop among physicians in a community, courts developed the “similar locality” rule, as in Illinois. Some jurisdictions have abandoned the “locality” rule altogether and hold the physician to the standard of a reasonably competent physician acting under the same or similar circumstances.Google Scholar
648 S.W.2d 391 (Tex. App. 1983).Google Scholar
Id. at 393 n.1.Google Scholar
Id. at 393 n.2Google Scholar
Id. at 394.Google Scholar
Id. at 395.Google Scholar
See Cohn, S.D., Revocation of Nurses' Licenses: How Does It Happen? Law, Medicine & Health Care 11(1):22 (February 1982).Google Scholar
373 A.2d 26 (Md. App. 1977).Google Scholar
Id. at 30.Google Scholar
654 P.2d 263 (Alaska 1982).Google Scholar
Id. at 265–66.Google Scholar
Id. at 266.Google Scholar
Prosser, W., Handbook of the Law of Torts § 30 (West Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minn.) (4th ed. 1971).Google Scholar
The standard of care is distinct from the issue of authority to practice. See Wolff, M.A., Court Upholds Expanded Practice Roles for Nurses, Law, Medicine & Health Care 12(1): 26–29 (February 1984); Greenlaw, J., Sermchief v. Gonzales and the Debate over Advanced Nursing Practice Legislation, Law, Medicine & Health Care 12(1): 30–31 (February 1984).Google Scholar
262 S.E.2d 865 (N.C. App. 1980).Google Scholar
Id. at 867.Google Scholar
Id. at 868, quoting Byrd v. Hospital, 162 S.E. 738, 740 (N.C. 1932).Google Scholar
Id. at 868 (emphasis added).Google Scholar
175 Cal. Rptr. 177 (Cal. App. 1981).Google Scholar
Id. at 181–82.Google Scholar
Id. at 192 n.6.Google Scholar
Id. at 192.Google Scholar