Administrative Leave?

KELLYGIRL · Mar 29, 2005

Has anyone been on "administrative leave?"
I got a call today from my nurse manager, who told me I was on "administrative leave" while she investigates a patient's complaint against me. Entirely without merit, let me add. I am so glad I documented everything!
Do you get paid for this?
How did your situation end (good or bad)?

I have not ever been on admin. leave, though I know several people that have. You should be paid for the leave. Sometimes the results are good and sometimes the results are bad. Your co-workers and superiors will probably be interviewed concerning the incident and your reputation with others and your patients. I wish you the best of luck and hope everything turns out okay.

elkpark · Mar 29, 2005

I have worked for several years as a surveyor/investigator of hospitals for my state and the Feds, so I have been involved in investigating many complaints and other situations regarding whether a staff member put patients at risk.

Typically, the hospitals do put involved staff on "administrative leave" until they have completed their internal investigation, and, if they hadn't done that when we showed up, we sure were curious about why they hadn't!

Please note that being placed on administrative leave because of a patient complaint or bad outcome related (possibly) to care you provided does not mean that either the hospital or the state regulating agency is assuming that you are at fault and things happened exactly the way the client said! It just means that they are erring on the side of caution until the investigation(s) are concluded. The clear expectation of the regulatory agencies is that, if a staff member has been accused of improper or unsafe client care, they will be removed from direct patient care until the question has been settled, just to be sure.

Some hospitals, instead of just sending a nurse home for several days, use her/him in some other area of the nursing department that doesn't involve direct patient care. Typically, staff do get paid for being on administrative leave (after all, it wasn't your idea to stay home from work).

In my experience, the majority of patient complaints my team investigated turned out to have little or no validity and did not result in any consequences for the hospital or individual staff members. I am glad to hear that you documented everything, and I hope that this situation will turn out well for you.