Commuity Nurse- legal question

Nurses General Nursing

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I work as a nurse in the community and the family wants me to sign a checklist confirming very specific nursing competencies, ie. size of the child's tracheostomy, how to inflate it, how to properly resuscitate, emergency protocol, how long the ventilator battery lasts, how to change the battery etc. The checklist is to be signed and dated by myself and the family. The community nursing company I work for has nothing to do with this checklist and it is not on company letterhead, nor are they signing it in any way.

I understand I am responsible for my competencies and have no hesitation signing in that regard. My concern is if something happened to the child could the family use this signed checklist to take me to court and I would have no back up from my company since they are not signing or stamping this checklist? It just seems quite official and the lack of my company involvement on the form seems odd to me...

Thoughts?

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

What does your supervisor say?

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I'm not really clear what your role is in this to begin with since you've described yourself as a "community nurse", aka public health nurse, yet you're describing a individual patient care role.

I think it's totally appropriate for the family, which is who you essentially work for, to confirm that you are competent to care for their child. If anything, this sort of documentation would help protect you in the future since it limits the family's ability to say that you didn't have the basic skills to care for their child if something were to happen.

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.

Are you in the US? That sounds like a private duty pediatric case. Does your employing agency do annual competencies with skill check off/demonstration?

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to clarify: i am in canada and i am not a public health nurse i go to homes in the community and spend 8-10 hours doing a shift overnight to run the ventilator and enteral feed etc.. my employer does do annual competency review sign-offs this is strictly a checklist the family has come up with. My employer is aware of this request and supporting it.

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

I wouldn't sign it. It could be used against you.

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Specializes in PICU.

I probably would hesitate to sign this. Perhaps you could talk to the family and just have them "check you off" Have them initial that they taught you everything you needed to know about their child. Have your agency also co-sign.

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Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.

You really need to run this past the company Attorney. Since you are posing your question as a "legal question", we cannot provide you with Legal advice per Terms of Service.

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