The case of Norton vs. Argonaut Insurance Co. was the result of a wrongful death suit initiated by the plaintiff’s, Glynace Norton and his wife Anne Norton, in an effort to recover damages for the accidental overdose and subsequent death, of their three month old daughter by hospital staff at Baton rouge General Hospital on January 02, 1960. In summary, the plaintiff’s infant daughter was diagnosed with a congenital heart condition shortly after being born and was given the drug Lanoxin, which was intended to strengthen the child’s heart and minimize the infants pulse rate. Within two weeks of being discharged, the Norton’s infant daughter was readmitted into the hospital with worsening symptoms. As a result of ineffective communication
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If I were the hospital administrator, chief of the medical staff or the chief of nursing, I would implement stringent standards to follow that provide maximum protection which would ensure that the administering of medication is performed safely and efficiently. The most common errors reported by healthcare providers, are those that have to do with medication errors. The fact that nurses are often front line providers who are required to administer medication to patients (at the direction of doctors), it is imperative that instructions be followed to the letter and practices and procedures carefully executed to avoid medication errors, serious injury or loss of life. Some of the following practices could be seen as causes of medication errors; failure to notate an order change, negligence with giving injections, failure to administer the appropriate medication, medications with similar sounding names, the wrong dosage, the failure to cease or discontinue medication and administering medication to the wrong patient. According to Showalter (2017), Negligence occurs when a person fails to live up to accepted standards of behavior. Four elements are essential to proving …show more content…
This is supported by the reading, “…to conduct oneself as a reasonably prudent person would in similar circumstances. A breach of duty imposes liability if it results in injury to property or another person” (Showalter, 2017, pg. 141). The case involving Norton vs. Argonaut Insurance Co. has me inclined to believe that an emphasis must be placed on hospital patient safety, in order to force the courts to recognize and implement a stricter regime designed to make nurses and staff evaluate and question medication protocols and orders and if warranted, have the right to refuse to administer a drug. In retrospect, nurses and hospital staff could find themselves frequently named in civil litigation suits involving medication errors, a hospital safety issue plaguing a great number of nurses and other medical staff in every patient care setting. With regards to these and other changes that need to take place, nursing boards will need to protect patients as well as nurses by guaranteeing that regulations governing nursing responsibilities are consistent with any expanded definition of a nurse’s role as implemented by the courts currently or in the future. The court in this case found that the nurse was indeed negligent for failing to correspond with Dr. Stotler for clarification of the medication dosage and how it
If I were the hospital administrator, chief of the medical staff or the chief of nursing, I would implement stringent standards to follow that provide maximum protection which would ensure that the administering of medication is performed safely and efficiently. The most common errors reported by healthcare providers, are those that have to do with medication errors. The fact that nurses are often front line providers who are required to administer medication to patients (at the direction of doctors), it is imperative that instructions be followed to the letter and practices and procedures carefully executed to avoid medication errors, serious injury or loss of life. Some of the following practices could be seen as causes of medication errors; failure to notate an order change, negligence with giving injections, failure to administer the appropriate medication, medications with similar sounding names, the wrong dosage, the failure to cease or discontinue medication and administering medication to the wrong patient. According to Showalter (2017), Negligence occurs when a person fails to live up to accepted standards of behavior. Four elements are essential to proving …show more content…
This is supported by the reading, “…to conduct oneself as a reasonably prudent person would in similar circumstances. A breach of duty imposes liability if it results in injury to property or another person” (Showalter, 2017, pg. 141). The case involving Norton vs. Argonaut Insurance Co. has me inclined to believe that an emphasis must be placed on hospital patient safety, in order to force the courts to recognize and implement a stricter regime designed to make nurses and staff evaluate and question medication protocols and orders and if warranted, have the right to refuse to administer a drug. In retrospect, nurses and hospital staff could find themselves frequently named in civil litigation suits involving medication errors, a hospital safety issue plaguing a great number of nurses and other medical staff in every patient care setting. With regards to these and other changes that need to take place, nursing boards will need to protect patients as well as nurses by guaranteeing that regulations governing nursing responsibilities are consistent with any expanded definition of a nurse’s role as implemented by the courts currently or in the future. The court in this case found that the nurse was indeed negligent for failing to correspond with Dr. Stotler for clarification of the medication dosage and how it