The nursing process and allegations of malpractice against perinatal registered nurses in Florida

Abstract

<p>The nursing process as a foundation of professional nursing practice organizes care around the components of assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation as required for professional registered nurses by the Florida Nurse Practice Act. Nurses who fail to comply with the Nurse Practice Act risk poor outcomes for their clients, disciplinary action from the State regulatory body, and legal action from the clients. This study was an examination of litigation claims against professional registered nurses in Florida who practice perinatal nursing seeking to identify and categorize allegations of negligence within the components of the nursing process. The expectation of this qualitative summative content analysis was the review of existing cases of litigation against perinatal nurses in Florida to categorize allegations in alignment with the steps of the nursing process. The main study finding was the identification of the implementation component of the nursing process as the most prevalently occurring in the cases reviewed, with diagnostic and planning components as prominent causes of allegations identified in the study. The findings of the study provide a foundation for nursing leaders to develop nursing activities and guidelines to promote compliance with the Florida Nurse Practice Act. Further study is needed to determine the most beneficial means of documenting nursing practice, particularly with the growing use of electronic documentation. Electronic records focused and aligned with the components of the nursing process may be a starting point toward improving compliance with documentation and with the Florida Nurse Practice Act.</p>