Telephone orders....question

[mycatmax]

I am a Very very new RN. Today was my second time getting a TO. I had a patient ready to be d/c ed from the cardiac doctor and i had to call the PCP and see if he was okay with it...anything to add... and get an order for her coumadin. Now when i called his office, I spoke with the RN there and gave her the information, thinking that she would give that info to the doc and he would then call me back. Well SHE ended up calling me back. She repeated the orders that he said. I asked my preceptor about this and she told me to write it as a TO order.... with the doc's name/ my name.

I just thought that was weird. Shouldn't i have spoke with the Doctor directly instead of having his nurse tell me the orders that he told her? That was wrong, wasn't it? Is this normal practice? I didn't feel exactly comfortable with it.

[EmmaG, RN]

Are you sure state regulations allow you to take doctor's orders through an RN?

Yes. Office nurses also are the ones who call in patient's prescriptions to pharmacies. It falls under the physician's scope of practice to delegate these duties.

I never took an order from an unlicensed staff, but I found this...

Q. Can a nurse take physician orders from an unlicensed person (ie; medical assistant)?

A. Yes. Nothing in the Kansas Nurse Practice Act prevents a nurse from receiving a physicians order through an unlicensed person. The Healing Arts Act does not preclude a physician from relaying an order through an unlicensed person. A nurse still has a duty to know that it is a legitimate physician order and to question the order if it does not seem standard/correct. Some liability carriers preclude an insured from engaging in this practice because having a middleman/unlicensed individual can increase the margin for error. Check your facility policy/procedure to see if it is prohibited or allowed.

Interesting...

[Little Panda RN, ASN, RN]

I worked in a doctors office for many years. It is standard practice for the physician to give orders to his office nurse and for the office nurse to relay this information to the hospital. I always kept the hospital nurse on the phone while I asked the physician their question and then I would relay his answer to them. Never had a problem and no errors were ever made that I was aware of, and I am sure I would have heard about it if there was one.

[bill4745, RN]

Q. Can a nurse take physician orders from an unlicensed person (ie; medical assistant)?

A. Yes. Nothing in the Kansas Nurse Practice Act prevents a nurse from receiving a physicians order through an unlicensed person

But does anything allow it to be done?

[EmmaG, RN]

But does anything allow it to be done?

??

If it's not prohibited, then it's up to the facility to decide if it is allowed. It is at our hospital.

From the above quote: Check your facility policy/procedure to see if it is prohibited or allowed.