Patient abadonement?

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

We have a few nurses that leave the floor - not to bring a patient downstairs or something but actually leave the floor to go outside to smoke or leave the hospital for a food run. We watch the nurse's patients but if something were to happen and the primary nurse was unavailable - would that count as patient abadonement?

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Specializes in Peri-op/Sub-Acute ANP.

No. If what you were describing was patient abandonment they we would all be guilty of abandoning our patients when we went to the cafe for lunch.

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Specializes in ICU/CCU, PICU.

Yes it is. Unless the RN has given a full report on the patient, it can be considered as such. Personally, in the cases you mentioned, I would not watch their patient unless I received a more concise report. There's a difference between going to the cafe, where you could be back in you unit in

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If the nurse has handed over responsibility for the patient to another nurse (who has agreed to accept it) in her/his absence, it's fine. If a nurse just disappears for a while without telling anyone or making arrangements for another appropriately licensed person to be responsible for her/his patients, that is abandonment. When you (OP) say you "watch" the other nurses' patients, does that mean they ask you to and give you report before they leave, or do you just notice that they're gone and start watching?

(Of course, the above is not intended as legal advice -- just my experience in a few different states over the years. Different states have different rules and expectations about what constitutes "abandonment" -- your best source of info is your BON.)

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Specializes in Peri-op/Sub-Acute ANP.

The question of patient abandonment isn't a question of time or distance, it's whether or not another licensed professional agreed to take responsibility for them in your absence. If a nurse asks me if I will watch her patients and I say yes, I am assuming responsibility for them until she returns and I turn over responsibility back to her. Now, of course, there should be a handover and I should be familiar with what is going on with the patients before I take them, but if I am foolish enough to take responsibility for a patient that I don't know anything about it doesn't change the fact that I assumed responsibility for them. In the OP's instance it appears that the departing nurse has requested other qualified professionals to take responsibility for her charges in her absence, and they have agreed to do that. It is arguing semantics to say after the fact that, "well I just agreed to watch them, I didn't agree to be responsible for them" if something goes wrong. If a nurse just skips the unit without confirming that another licensed provider will take responsibility for them then yes that would be abandonment.

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

I ask them to give me a quick run view on why they are there, but that's the extent of the report I get while the primary nurse is off the unit. Nurses have also given each other their report sheets.

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.

I feel very uncomfortable leaving the floor for extended periods of time. Going to another unit, taking a patient to a test or running to the cafeteria real quick doesn't bother me but it irks me when another nurse actually leaves the hospital grounds. it just seems like a liability issue!

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Is there a charge nurse who exchanges report on ALL the patients with another charge nurse when changing shifts?

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Specializes in ER, progressive care.
Is there a charge nurse who exchanges report on ALL the patients with another charge nurse when changing shifts?

Not where I work.

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