Nurse Practitioner: Collaborative Practice Agreement Does Not Define Standard Of Care.
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
October 2017
The nurse practitioner’s collaborative practice agreement with the physician does not define the legal the standard of care. A nurse practitioner may have other responsibilities to the patient beyond those expressly spelled out in the agreement. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MARYLAND September 15, 2017
The patient was seen in an outpatient clinic by a nurse practitioner. Possible kidney dysfunction was suggested by the abnormal lab values from the blood drawn at the clinic visit. The nurse practitioner scheduled a follow-up colonoscopy with a gastroenterologist for the patient’s symptoms that suggested Crohn’s disease, but did nothing further about the abnormal lab values.
The patient later sued over complications from a drug prescribed for irritable bowel syndrome. The drug might have been contraindicated if the nurse practitioner had explored the abnormal lab values to confirm or rule out kidney disease.
The US District Court for the District of Maryland declined to rule out the testimony of one of the patient’s experts. The expert witness proposed to testify that a nurse practitioner cannot limit the scope of the legal duties for which he or she claims to be responsible to the patient to the tasks expressly defined in the collaborative practice agreement with the supervising physician. If follow-up for the abnormal lab values was necessary, it was the nurse practitioner’s legal responsibility to see to it.
Harmon v. US, 2017 WL 4098742 (D. Md., September 15, 2017).More from nursinglaw.com
http://www.nursinglaw.com/collaborative-practice.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/collaborative-agreement.htm
http://www.nursinglaw.com/nurse-practitioner-partnership-dissolution.htm