Question 1
For a medical malpractice claim to be made, an expected standard of care should have existed; a healthcare provider who had the duty to provide this standard should breach this duty. The harm caused by the breach should be foreseeable; the degree of care given leads to this foreseeable harm which ultimately causes actual injury to the patient. Therefore, a nurse who has certain orders or is expected to do certain acts as a result of their professional training and does not follow them properly, leading to harm to the patient, will be liable since their omission of care is the foreseeable cause of harm and contributes to injury which in the cases provided is death.
Question 2
One of the common legal issues in the medical malpractice suits in the study cases involved the failure to administer the correct dosage of ordered medicine and failure to follow instructions. Another common legal issue is the failure of nurses to observe the basic minimum standard of care expected from them as a result of their professional practice. One way of preventing liability is for nurses to be posted to areas that match their skill level. The nurses should also have supervisors whom they can report to and consult in case of changes that make the instructions unclear.
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Question 3
Training and setting a code of practice that emphasizes documentation are important. The hospital can also make it mandatory to carry the patient file whenever the physician is consulted. This ensures that before the nurse can report any changes to the physician or whenever the physician is called as instructed, the nurse has to have the updated file with them whether or not it is needed. Finally, the hospital should also ensure that whenever the patient is moved, copies of the documentation from the previous unit are provided. This will eradicate cases of a patient being transferred without the new unit receiving accurate records, as happened in Study case
