Did I abandon my patient?

[LauraMT]

I work the night shift and we have a nurse on days who does not care to take report. Let's call him nurse

Anyway last night I had five patients and this morning I reported off on 4 of them. Then came nurse's patient, a person with an EF of 10% going for a new pacer/icd in a few days while waiting for their heart transplant workup. The only reason they are not at home is because our transplant team is the only one who will talk to them and they live 200 miles away.

Nurse was not in the report room which is typical for him. If you have something to tell nurse you have to chase his butt down and tell him. You have to find out what rooms he has and have to wait for him to finish with the patient and then he'll come out and say, "I don't have any questions" and walk away and if it's really important you have to run after him and tell it to his back.

So this morning I said to myself, "Self, nurse had this patient yesterday and knows him (i've abandoned gender non-specific language. HIPAA-schmipaa. I'm too tired) You've had this patient for 5 days and in that time you have gotten him tylenol for a headache once and gotten him a container of cranberry juice once and given him his spiriva 5x. Your carpool is going to leave you and you will have to ride the bus home and you know some crack-head will want to share your seat." So I left.

But (this just registered in my brain) on the way out I saw a pile of kardexes and bridge worksheets on the table with a "nurse" sticky note on them. Maybe nurse was not there yet. Or maybe he knew all his patients and left his notes there. Anyway, did I break the law? The kardexes include the shift assessment as well as a narrative shift summary so if he shows up he'll know what's going on. The ANM in that shift is fabulous to new grads and mellow so I doubt I will get in trouble, but you know how things nag at your mind. I know in the future I'll be tracking his back down and telling it my reports so I don't have to be a worry wart. I guess if he really wasn't there the charge would have to hear report.

Sorry to ramble so long (and sorry for the excessive use of parenthesis (it's an affectation)).

Laura (parenthesis abuser/patient abandoner)

[november17, ASN, RN]

Haha I tell the nurses coming on shift that they have 12 minutes to get report. If they take longer I give them a fast rundown in speedtalk and leave. I hate running after people.

[JRD2002]

At my facility we have to sign off on the chart at the bottom of the last physician order at shift change. This is to done by the nurse leaving and the nurse coming in and makes sure that the nurse coming on sees any new orders and also indicates that a change in the person responsible for care has been made. Sometimes we have to wait 15 minutes after our shift ends for a float to get up to our floor. Any longer and I would normally just give report to the charge nurse. I don't think that I would want to work at a facility where the nurses and manager were so lackadaisical about report. I would not want to be their patient.