Читать книгу The Nursing Associate's Handbook of Clinical Skills - Группа авторов - Страница 217

A nursing associate in a very busy outpatient clinic had forgotten to manually log off from the workstation that he was working at. The next user (the ward clerk) sits down to access the computer and notices that the records that the nursing associate was using belong to his ex‐wife; he reads the records and discovers that his ex‐wife had, on more than three occasions, attempted suicide.

The content of the record was inflammatory and accusatory; the ward clerk was clearly upset by what she was reading.

The negligent action caused by the nursing associate in failing to log off from the workstation caused psychological harm to the ward clerk who was clearly distressed by what she had read. What action should be taken next?

When considering safe storage of manually made records, it is the nursing associate who is accountable for ensuring that the record that they are accessing and making an entry in is returned to its safely stored position that it was in before it was used. Some records will be stored at the patients’ bedside or in their own home, but other records will be stored centrally in the clinical area. It is crucial that the nursing associate considers the record that is being accessed and stores it appropriately thinking again about how limited the access to the record needs to be.