shsteer

Hi, I am a labor and delivery nurse in a small community hospital. We occasionally transport patients in perterm labor to a nearby tertiary facility if she can be stablized. One of the labor and delivery nurses is required to accompany the patient on the ambulance to the other hospital. Here is my question: what is my liability if something should happen (i.e. the patient delivers the baby, etc.) while enroute? There is no written hospital policy regarding my duties while on the ambulance and therefore I am never exactly sure what to do regarding assessment, charting, etc. and what my responsibility is versus the EMT. Most of the patients are on magnesium sulfate therapy while enroute and we bring calcium gluconate with us in case of the patient starts experiencing symptoms of magnesium toxicity. We also take a fetal doppler monitor with us but we have no orders that set forth how often we should be monitoring the fetal heart rate. I am going to talk to my manager sometime in the next few days about this issue, but I would appreciate any comments any of you might have regarding this issue. The more I think about it and the more research I do, the more worried I become. Thanks.