NRS 430 Topic 4 DQ 2 Outline the concept of professional accountability as it pertains to nursing NRS 430 Topic 4 DQ 2 Outline the concept of professional accountability as it pertains to nursing. Provide examples of how a nurse demonstrates professional accountability in clinical expertise, the nursing process, and evidence-based practice.

NRS 430 Topic 4 DQ 2 Outline the concept of professional accountability as it pertains to nursing NRS 430 Topic 4 DQ 2 Outline the concept of professional accountability as it pertains to nursing. Provide examples of how a nurse demonstrates professional accountability in clinical expertise, the nursing process, and evidence-based practice.

REPLY TO DISCUSSION

Please share a situation (no names or identifying information) when a nurse did not follow standards of professional accountability? What impact did that have on the patient (if any).

I recently learned about nurse that didn’t follow the standards of professional accountability when it came to medication administration and the out come resulted in death of the patient and much pain and suffering for that family after the loss of their family member. The nurse should have followed her 5 rights to medication administration. Right patient, right medication, right dose, right route, right time. In this instance this nurse overrode the pyxis and pulled vecuronium when she was supposed to pull versed. This mistake could have been prevented if the nurse followed the standards of professional accountability when it comes to patient safety and medication administration safety checks.

Nurses are given great responsibility when it comes to caring for the lives of others, the accountability that the general public places in nurses is so great that nurses must always follow the standard of professional accountability in their day to day work in order to create a safe practice that becomes their second nature. Yes, the system that is in place could often times fail a nurse resulting in a sentinel event although, as a licensed nurse it is imperative to fall back on always using safe patient standards no matter where you work in order to protect patient safety and the RN license.

IV fluid was given to children in a pediatric ward. The nurse failed to check the concentration of IV fluid. Five children received IV fluid and unfortunately one child died. The assigned staff and team leader was immediately terminated from service. This sentinel event could have been prevented by checking the concentration of IV fluid before starting the IV therapy, especially in pediatrics. There was no scanning system in use at the time.

Billie, I knew of a nurse in surgery who did not meet the standards of professional accountability when she did not verify that implants needed for the surgery were actually in the surgery suite! She was in such a hurry to get on with her day that she did not follow policy by verifying necessary equipment/implants prior to bringing the patient back to surgery. Fortunately, we had backup implants that were able to be processed and no harm was inflicted on the patient. That would have been a totally different outcome if we didn’t have backups! The patient could have been under anesthesia for a much longer time than necessary or the surgery could have even been cancelled