Ok so the other day my wife was working a 12 hour night shift with the first 4 hours on one unit and the following 8 hours on a different unit. She arrived on the second unit around d 11:15 after giving report to the relief on the first unit. During 11 and 11:15 there was a fall on the second unit before my wife had made it to the floor. The nurse who was still on that unit assessed the pt and removed them from the floor and reported it to my wife but did not do an incident report. My wife also did not do an incident report because she was not the nurse who saw the pt on the floor and assessed them. She did write a nursing note for her shift with vitals and follow up assessment.
Her employer is telling her that she is the one responsible for the incident report because it happened after 11 and that it's not their job to pay overtime to the previous nurse to stay and do it although my wife wasn't even on the floor yet when it happened. She was concerned about how this could be used in court against her and that it could be false documentation. Her employer does not care and actually yelled at her for bringing up these concerns. She talked to her supervisor, the ADON and the DON and they are all saying that it is her job and not the other nurse. This makes no sense to me.
At my hospital, the person who finds the pt on the floor is who does the incident report, even if it's a CNA. The nurse may fill out the parts pertaining to medication and dr. Notification and so forth, but the person who finds the pt is who describes the incident.
I know that incident reports are not part of the pt's chart but they can be used for litigation purposes. Am I right in thinking that her facility is a careless place? And are they wrong?