Critical patient @ change of shift, which nurse is responsible??

[Soulsinfinity]

Just the other day we had a situation on my floor between two nurses @ change of shift. Second shift nurse had a patient that had a change in status and needed to be moved to a higher level of care. Our rapid response team had already been called and was assisting with the patients care, the patient was stable. The first shift nurse who just had came on got report regarding the patient. The patients room was ready and rapid response was ready to transfer the patient but waiting on the nurse to go give report to the nurse accepting the patient in the higher level of care. My question is "which nurse should have gone to give report?" The one who had taken care of him and called rapid or the nurse just coming on? Who is leagally but not only morally responsible? Both nurses felt that the other should go. Please help???

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

I work on the opposite end of the equation, in the ICU. What often happens for us is that the person coming on is nabbed when they arrive on the unit and told they have to start early so the nurse from the floor can give report and go home. But when we've got a patient ready to go out and the floor won't have staff until the next shift, they won't take the patient until after the receiving nurse has taken report on the other patients and done their assessments. I've transferred patients out an hour after the shift starts, patients that I know next to nothing about.

Besides, would anybody walk out during a code because it was the end of shift?

I made that argument once in support of my claim for overtime. My manager said that once the next shift had come on there were enough people to carry out the resus so I should have gone, and my OT was denied. Didn't matter that we were cannulating the patient at the bedside for E-CPR... There are times when I'll stay and keep going, but there are others when I hand off my code pager and hit the hall running.

[llltapp]

What is right for the PATIENT??? the offgoing nurse giving the report most definitely.

[diane227, LPN, RN]

If you are on the clock, you are responsible, off going or oncoming, until that patient is in stable hands and the both of you are not needed. The off going nurse has most of the info at that point. The LAST THING that anyone needs to be doing at a time like this is have an argument about who had responsibility for the patient. That just won't fly.