Lawsuit involving Negligence and Inadequate Screening of Staff (Essay Sample)

Legal Case Study
Student’s Name
Institution
Course
Date
Lawsuit involving Negligence and Inadequate Screening of Staff
Case summary
This lawsuit involved a nurse who neglected an old man resulting to him falling down and further abused him in a long term care hospital. The repercussions were too bad such that the old man had to be hospitalized and the nurse arraigned in a court of law. The family filed a lawsuit against the hospital for failure to screen their staff.
The old man, Galer hired an attorney who specialized in abuses occurring in hospitals. Galer’s attorney obtained the tape which recorded the incident in the hospital, Bellarme and her personal records and terms of service. The chief Administrator of the hospital was asked whether he had screened the nurse’s references and it was found out that he had not. The nurse also had a criminal record that was unknown. At the final footage, the tape was played and the administrator confirmed that it actually was a true footage.
Outcome
In about three days, the hospital through their attorney settled on an agreement with Galer and the amount paid as compensation was not disclosed.
Risk-mitigation techniques that the hospital could have employed to prevent the situation
Proactively perform risk assessments- The risk management team in the hospital should have considered risk assessment and ascertain the possibility of such incidences happening in advance. This is in an effort to prevent them from happening rather than reacting to them. The risk management team in the hospital should have conducted occurrence analysis and give scores to every department and even staff in the event that the incidence occurs. It could have also armed the hospital with the capacity to detect such occurrences and counter them. The risk scores enable the management team to establish ways of mitigating such occurrences. An example is South Nassau Communities Hospital laid a strategy of combating an imaginary problem involving total failure in the system due to too much patients at a time. The hospital put a strategy in place ready to counter such a problem. Having reserve nurses (Richardson, R., & North, M. (2017)).
Hardwire practices- These are risk mitigation practices which are meant to maintain a very low risk hospital environment. This is done by standardizing the normal practices across the organization. The management team ought to put strategies in place which ensure that particular steps are followed and completed. Consistency is also a key point in implementing the strategies.
The risk management team will ensure that the laid-down strategies are adhered to by making frequent observation, interviewing staff. An example is, if the staff are supposed to understand all the steps in a policy, they should ask the staff to explain them to ascertain their understanding.
Prioritization of tasks- In order to perform all their duties well, hospitals should prioritize their tasks. This ensures that the most important tasks are done on time (Richardson, R., & North, M. (2017)). It is not easy to get everything accomplished and therefore all jobs calls for prioritization.
Establishment of a just culture- While risk managers and policy makers make policies, it is difficult to implement them. It is difficult to detect all the mistakes in the entire organization. To counter this, they should encourage their members to report anything which threaten the well-being of the hospital (Shekelle, P. G., Pronovost, P. 365). A just environment ensures that mistakes such as those of Galer never occur.Determine actions the nurse could have taken to improve the outcome
Prevent falling of patient- Research has it that a third of people aged 65 and above fall each year. There are a number of physical factors which contribute to this occurrence. Vertigo, flu, Meniere disease, anesthesia effects are caused by inpatient and outpatient procedures. Being aware of what as a patient one is supposed to do, it is important to care for his/her patients.
As a nurse, there are many things one can do to prevent their patients from falli...