Nursing Negligence Case Study

In a probable nursing negligence case, the plaintiff must first obtain the medical records. This allows the attorney to review the care and treatment rendered to the patient through an examination of the records. This would include a chronology of events to allow the parties in the litigation to put the details into perspective. The medical records would be used in every court session and would entail the care given, medications, treatments, and all the tests carried out in a chronological order to provide a clear guideline into the medical negligence case. This would also serve as a guide to ascertain the torts and breaches that may have occurred.
The plaintiff lawyers would also need to obtain documents proving product liability claims as

well as witness testimonies regarding proximate causes and damages for review. The witness records should be organized in a binder with labels providing names of each witness or people involved in the case. Moreover, the plaintiff lawyer may be required to provide references, cites, and the appropriate copies of standard of care.
The plaintiff may also obtain equipment manuals to assist in establishing the standard of care in the case. This would give an account of where the nurses may have caused a breach, for example the hospital’s failure to chart reviews over the last three months to the incident. This shows negligence on the part of the hospital to chart, carry out and report to the units in which case the same failure may have occurred in the plaintiff case.
With regard to standard of care, job description may be used to ascertain if one of the parties failed to perform their functions diligently. Since the nurse failed to perform her job requirements, thereby resulting into death of the plaintiff’s wife, is liable for breach. This involved the registered nurse’s failure to chart the motor and sensory level assessment as well as allowing time to lapse between vomiting and finding the patient in dispute. Further, of importance to the plaintiff is a document providing both federal and state administrative code regulations providing the minimum standards that must be met in the nursing duty of care.
The Third Restatement of Torts, Section 14 would assist the plaintiff in the case to provide incidents of negligence on the part of the hospital’s staff.

Other records that may be obtained include a written plan of care for the patient as well as documents providing a quality assessment and assurance requirements. This would also include physician orders, nurses’ notes, assessments, incident reports, medication and treatment sheets, care plans, social service records, and the admission face sheet.
Personnel files of each involved person in the case would prove useful to the plaintiff. This would tracking down the individual records of each of them, especially Joseph who is rumored to be alcoholic and also provided a testimony that was different from Kelly’s. The hospital and the staff involved in the care of the patient would be held liable to negligence particularly due to lack of clear records determining the exact time the vital signs and epidural site were assessed in addition to allowing time to lapse between vomiting and responding to the patient.
In the case of Griffin v. The Methodist Hospital, medical malpractice was brought before a court on grounds of negligence whereby treatment caused Achilles tendon contracture. The affidavits submitted failed to address care or treatment necessary to prevent the condition in addition to failure to provide when or how the patient’s condition was assessed. The hospital and nurses were liable to charges of

negligence.