Legal Professional Nursing Issues
Added on 2021-04-21
11 Pages3597 Words70 Views
Healthcare and Research
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Running head: LEGAL PROFESSIONAL NURSING ISSUESLegal Professional nursing issuesName of the studentUniversity nameAuthor’s note
1LEGAL PROFESSIONAL NURSING ISSUESTable of ContentsIntroduction................................................................................................................................2Potential safety issue in actual clinical setting...........................................................................2Discussion of the issue in relation to the ACORN standards for perioperative nursing............3Alignment of the current workplace settings with ACORN standards......................................4Critically evaluating the strength of the evidence base and the ACORN standards..................5Recommendations for effective nursing practices.....................................................................6Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7References..................................................................................................................................8
2LEGAL PROFESSIONAL NURSING ISSUESIntroduction The current assignment focuses upon the legal and professional standards of nursing.The standards of nursing which had been taken into consideration over here is the AustralianCollege of Perioperative Nurses Standards (ACORN). The standards have beenimplemented to ensure optimal patient safety in a surgical setup. The aim for theimplementation of the standard is to remove all items used during surgery and proceduresfrom the proximity of the patient unless intentionally retained. The principle guidelines of theACORN standards are aimed at retrieval of all items used during surgery. The instrumentsused should be accounted for and properly documented. The ACORN standards areunderpinned by description of various roles such as circulating nurse, recovery nurse,instrument nurse and anaesthetic nurse. The minimum number of nurses required depends upon the complexity of the processand the requirements of the patient. Some of the basic objectives of the ACORN standardsare – safety of the staff and patient, asepsis and clinical care, management and staffing,prevention of infection. In the current assignment, the relevance of the ACORN standardwithin a preoperative nursing scenario has been discussed. The practices adopted within anactual scenario have been evaluated in accordance with the ACORN standards. Potential safety issue in actual clinical setting The implementation of the ACORN standards helps in ensuring that the patient safetyis maintained during the conduct of the surgical process and an instrument in not retained inthe body cavity of the patient by mistake. It could be done by following step wise checkswhich ensures that the instruments are safely removed before a body cavity is closed. For understanding the importance of the ACORN standards in an actual clinical set upit is necessary to reflect upon an actual scenario. Here, the patient who was a 58 year old manwas admitted to the hospital for ANTERIOR SPINAL FUSION. The case was started at 10am and finished at 5 pm. The count was performed by the same scrub and count nurse.However, during the conduct of the operative procedures the nurses failed to comply with theaccountability standards of instrument handling. It was later found during one of the post –operative diagnosis stage that a Raytec sponge was placed on top of lung during the surgicalprocess. The position of the Raytec was detected through post-operative X-ray.
3LEGAL PROFESSIONAL NURSING ISSUESIt could be related to the statement number 5 of the ACORN standards, which statesthat all the absorbent accountable items used during the surgery should be handled in manner,which will reduce the risk of the items being retained inside the body cavity of the patient(Gore and Osborne 2017, p.56). On further analysis, it was found that the nurse failed tonotify the doctor that the count has not been finished. Additionally, the hospital staffs lackedeffective training and guidance upon the use of the ACORN standards for ensuring thataccountability is maintained for the handling and management of instruments within apreoperative care unit. As per the standard statement 3 of the ACRORN policy andguidelines, safe counting techniques need to be followed by the nurse. In the current scenarioby not providing the doctor the required information there was a clear breach of ACORNstandard 8. Under the safe counting techniques, the nurse was required to keep an account ofthe actual instruments and items used during the surgical process (Lynn and Brownie 2015,p.112). This could further help in reducing the chances of error within a perioperative careenvironment.Discussion of the issue in relation to the ACORN standards for perioperative nursing The issue discussed with regards to an actual medical scenario can be furtherevaluated based upon the ACORN standards. The ACORN standards can be divided into anumber of sub standards from standard statement 1 through 9. The relevance of the standardswith regards to the current healthcare scenario could be discussed over here. The standardstatement 1 contains policies and guidelines surrounding the management of items duringsurgery. As commented by Hainset al. (2016), failure to comply with the standard canresult in incidence of medical negligence. The second statement states the nurses attending tothe care concerns of the patient within the perioperative environment needs to bear theresponsibility for the management of the surgical instruments (Irelandand Osborne 2016,p.54). As per the directive when there is one instrument and one circulating nurse oneapproved perioperative documentation (APD) should be used. However, if there is more thanone circulating nurse, separate APD should be used by each circulating nurse. This helps incompliance checking and monitoring in critical care. The proximity of the surgical sitesmakes it difficult to ensure the separation of the accountable items by the two teams (Duff etal. 2016, p.24). One of the most important criteria is the safe counting technique, which iscomplied in order to ensure that the surgical equipments and instruments are not retainedinside the body of the patient. In this respect, the nurses need to ensure that the items remain
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