Protect Yourself, Protect Your License, and Most of All Protect Your Patient
Many of us believe we are providing the best possible care for our patients, many of us believe we are practicing the best way possible, many of us believe we are safe practitioners. We are! but in a court of law, unless we are following the policy and procedures laid down in the policy and procedures hand book of the facility we work at, then we may be at risk of being sued or fired!
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Did you know that the only way to protect yourself in a court of law is to follow your company's policies and procedures, to the letter!
If it is in the Policy and Procedure (P & P) manual, then it is written in stone for your workplace. If you chose to not follow the P & P and something goes wrong then you are not covered by the facility where you work.
P & P are available to support, guide, and protect your practice. They are also there to protect the hospital or facility you work at from being sued. If you do not follow the P & P then they can fire you immediately and if a patient is harmed or dies then the buck stops at you!
Reading the P & P is up to you. I strongly suggest you find out where it is located and familiarize yourself with the contents.
If you had poor nursing training, mentors, and or preceptors then you can bet your bottom dollar half of them don't follow the policy and procedures provided by your facility.
I suggest that you familiarize yourself with your company's current P & P. Most health care facilities have a committee who update these on a regular basis and often they will change. You will be informed of the changes either by email or in a staff meeting.
Some Managers will review changes with you - making sure you understand them. Even if they send you these changes via email, read them because when these policies are sent out they have a 'read' receipt which confirms it was delivered and you read it. This will indicate that you have accepted the email and confirmed that you know about the policy changes.
If you are anything like me, it is all dry boring stuff and you haven't got the time to read it. You have to make the time - trust me
You have to respect these P & P because they are important and they do matter. I force myself to read them to check if I need to change my practice.
P & P are normally in place because something went wrong in the past somewhere and there was a need to formalize practice; and, to make sure we are all doing the same thing.
Often we worked and trained at different schools, hospitals. Not one of us practices the same, yet we all believe what what we are doing is safe and hat we are safe.
What you need to keep in mind is that we need to make sure we are practicing safely according to our company's policies. Under normal circumstances, it is a small change in our daily routines to comply to policy changes.
Can you imagine a defense in the court room of "Well I heard about it on a web site, so it must be true?" Or, "Well she does it that way so I did it."
It's not a good defense, trust me!
You have to follow your P & P and do it the way it is outlined in your P & P! Your internet friends could be correct in their practice but it is only correct if they are following their companies guidelines (ther own P & P).
I do not know about you but I have worked with a lot of healthcare professionals who practice is less than desirable. How do you know that the advice you are receiving via the internet is not from one of those less than desirable professionals?
You don't!
If you are concerned about your practice and you want to practice safely then you know what to do!
Protect yourself, protect your license, and most of all protect your patient.
Go find that manual!
Oh, and by the way, when you signed all that paperwork when you started your job, you probably signed to say you would follow the P & P of that facility.
Remember your company will be protecting themselves, now you need to protect yourself.
