It’s best to seek the help of a nurse attorney when facing any charge for the best defense. However, some nurses tend to face the results instead, without thinking that a nurse attorney is always reliable for matters such as these.
At the time of the incidents, an RN was employed as a Registered Nurse at a hospital facility in Denton, Texas, and had been in that position for two (2) years and two (2) months.
On or about February 25, 2019, while employed as a Registered Nurse, the RN failed to notify the doctor that Patient 1 had a critical blood sugar level of 473, as ordered. The RN’s conduct was likely to injure the patient in that it contributed to a delay in the treatment of hyperglycemia. The said RN erroneously documented the entry and discontinuation of insulin sliding scale and fingerstick glucose orders for Patient 1 as telephone read backorders when the orders should have been entered and discontinued as protocol orders. In addition, the RN failed to follow an order to obtain a vancomycin trough level for Patient 1 at 20:30, and instead canceled the order and rescheduled it as a telephone read backorder; thereby inaccurately noting that the order was discontinued as a duplicate order. The RNs conduct resulted in an inaccurate medical record and was likely to injure the patient in that subsequent caregivers did not have accurate information on which to base their decisions for further care. The said RN failed to follow an order to obtain a random vancomycin level for Patient 2, a patient who was on a six-week course of intravenous antibiotics for an infection and instead canceled the order by falsely noting that the order was discontinued. The pharmacist had held the aforementioned patient’s dose of vancomycin the day before due to an elevated vancomycin trough level. The conduct of the RN resulted in an inaccurate medical record and was likely to injure the patient in that subsequent caregivers did not have accurate information on which to base their decisions for further care.
In regards to the incident that happened, the RN states that she did not fail to notify a physician of the patient’s blood sugar. According to the RN, the patient’s blood sugar was noted to be at 473, and she was notified at 0640. The oncoming nurse was already there and awaiting the report. The RN mentioned that she gave a report to the oncoming nurse shortly after receiving the blood sugar report and notified her that the blood sugar was high. Per the policy of the facility and the timing of the report, the oncoming nurse was to handle the high blood sugar and she did so. In response to the incident regarding erroneous documentation, the RN indicated that she changed the insulin orders due to protocol where blood sugar levels would be checked first, followed by the administration of insulin. This was proper; however, the computer system would not let her enter it except in this manner. A statement from her supervisor confirmed the computer issue. In terms of the incident that occurred involving a Vancomycin order, the RN said that the patient had the order for vancomycin trough, but did not want her blood to be drawn. The RN added that she called the pharmacy and asked them why the patient was getting a vancomycin trough level. The RN stated that the pharmacist said just cancel it and if it needs to be done again, she would re-enter it.
However, she was not able to provide a good defense for herself, especially when the evidence was brought up to her. Therefore, the Board placed her RN license to a disciplinary action instead.
If you also received a letter from the Texas Board of Nursing regarding a case or complaint filed against you, you should hire a nurse attorney immediately before it’s too late. Texas nurse attorney Yong J. An is one of those dedicated nurse lawyers who helped various nurses in their cases since 2006. You may contact him 24/7 at (832) 428-5679 for more information or if you want to schedule a private consultation.