Nursing Home Incident Reports
Please write a 1 page essay about the case study answering the case study questions.
On Thursday morning, the administrator of The Laurels received a copy of an incident report written the day before by the charge nurse of the day shift. The report indicated that the day shift nurses aide responsible for Ms. Brown’s care had made six consecutive observations of Ms. Brown experiencing unusual and significant postprandial orthostatic hypotension on her shift. The report indicated that after a brief consultation with the aide (the only follow-up to the report), the extent of action to be taken is for Ms. Brown to be watched by the reporting day-shift aide for the rest of the week for any continuation of these occurrences.
The director of nurses (DON) chanced to pass by the office of the administrator (Mrs. Trump) shortly afterward. Ms. Trump asks the DON if the proposed action of further observations by the nurses aide was all that was planned. The DON nodded affirmatively, indicating that she had also read the report and felt that nothing further was necessary. The charge nurse and aide, she thought, were overreacting. Simple observation was all that seemed indicated, the DON felt.
1. What was happening to Ms. Brown?
2. How appropriate is the incident report; how appropriate were the actions taken?
3. How will the administrator respond to this situation?
4. From the point of view of risk management, is the charge nurse reporting a potentially compensable event (opening the facility to a lawsuit)?
