Since when is it my responsibility to...

Aurora77 · Feb 1, 2012

Are you sure it's not your responsibility? What's your facility policy?

I only take labs if I trust the nurse to follow up. Our lab records the name of the person taking the lab, not the name of the primary nurse. It has to be addressed within 30 min. It doesn't matter who the primary nurse is, the person who took the lab is responsible for follow up. Documentation by anyone within that time frame is sufficient.

anotherone, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2012

Where I work mostly whoever takes the call pages the doctor ( we have text pages) and usually writes a note in the chart such as , " Call from lab received, K 7.0, primary nurse Mary Smith, LPN notified and Dr. Jones notifed "

Vespertinas · Feb 1, 2012

This new hospital I'm at has it written in black and white on their "critical value report" sheets: if another RN took a value for someone else's patient, that RN's only responsibility is to communicate it to the primary and document who the primary was and what time you let her know. Later, the primary can fill out the rest with which MD she notified and what time.

In ANOTHER facility, they have banned reporting critical values to nurses altogether. Lab calls straight to the MD. I think that makes way more sense.

Of course you were not responsible to communicate to the MD for another RN. You have every reason to fill your manager in on the details so she doesn't think that you neglected YOUR patient. How could you be expected to call the MD? If it's not your pt, you don't even know what service that patient is on and who to contact. What next- you should follow through on orders to treat the critical value too?

tokmom, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2012

I would see what your policy is. Some nurses I don't always trust, so once I take the values I will write a quick note stating lab values and how they were passed on to Suzy RN and the time. A pain in the butt, but I'm a firm believer of CYA.

SandraCVRN · Feb 1, 2012

Our lab asks for the nurse taking care of pt xyz.....

NoviceRN10 · Feb 1, 2012

Our lab asks for the nurse taking care of pt xyz.....

Yes, but sometimes the nurse is busy so another staff member takes the call. You must work on a unit with Cisco phones that never leave the nurses side .

wooh, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2012

In ANOTHER facility, they have banned reporting critical values to nurses altogether. Lab calls straight to the MD. I think that makes way more sense.

Well that's just CRAZY! I didn't know it was even legal for a non-nurse to call an MD. I figured that it must be a JACO or HIPPA violation.

Personally, if I'm not 100% sure the assigned nurse is going to call on a lab value that I took, I'll chart that I notified the assigned nurse so it doesn't look like **I** ignored it.

MN-Nurse, ASN, RN · Feb 1, 2012

I take these calls rather often too. I always make sure the RN I reported to made a note in the chart.

BluegrassRN · Feb 1, 2012

Our policy is that whomever takes the phone call initializes the "critical results" report. So yes, in our facility it would be your responsibility.

Purple_Scrubs, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2012

In ANOTHER facility, they have banned reporting critical values to nurses altogether. Lab calls straight to the MD. I think that makes way more sense.

Curious here, does the lab also inform the nurse of the critical value? I think it is awesome that they page the MD themselves and that certainly makes sense, but if I was the RN at the bedside I would sure want to know about it too.

classicdame, MSN, EdD · Feb 1, 2012

personally I believe if you took the report you ought to document it, as the other person did not hear the conversation.It would actually decrease the chance of miscommunication.