Essentials Of Nursing Law And Ethics

An Updated and Authoritative Resource on Nursing Law and Ethics The Essentials of Nursing Law and Ethics, Second Edition focuses on the legal aspect of Nursing as it relates to patient safety and quality, environmental health and safety, error reduction and ethical boundaries of practice. Other timely topics include the appropriate use of social media by nursing staff. The text is written by a nurse attorney who presents complex topics in an understandable manner while providing accurate and well researched content relevant to the practice. Extensive legal research by the author incorporates the most current relevant professional and legal references including case law. The text is uniquely organized into five major sections including: the law and nursing practice; liability in patient care; documentation issues; employment and the workplace; and ethics. New to this Edition: • Professional boundaries and use of social media • Quality and safety initiatives in nursing practice, including Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) concepts and content, Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations • Environmental health and safety, including equipment safety • Staffing issues and implications for patient safety and liability • Workplace issues including factors to consider when accepting assignments, horizontal violence • Additional coverage on medication error reduction and safety initiatives • Updated content on electronic documentation, communication, and recordkeeping • Regulatory processes including state board use of off duty conduct in disciplinary proceedings, and data bank reporting, and remediation as an alternative to discipline • Expansion of content on ethical considerations in areas such as assisted suicide, patients’ rights, and applying the ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses • Moral distress and moral courage in ethical decision making • Update on the processes for basic legal research Key Features: Test bank featuring NCLEX type questions and rationale A glossary of legal terminology found within the text A Table of Cases for easier access to case law Expanded online resources and scholarly references included at the end of each chapter

Essentials of Nursing Law and Ethics is an authoritative resource designed to meet the needs of both nursing students and practicing nurses. This reference is a compilation of two-page chapters covering topics from legal issues related to basic practice such as documentation, patient teaching, and confidentiality to more complex areas of end of life issues and advanced directives.In addition, Essentials of Nursing Law and Ethics includes those issues pertinent to the everyday practice of nurses including refusing patient assignment, sexual harassment in the workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

This thoroughly updated third edition lays a solid foundation for understanding the intersection of law, ethics and the rights of the patient in the context of everyday nursing and health care practice. Outlining the key legal and ethical principles relevant to nurses, Essential Law and Ethics In Nursing: Patients, Rights and Decision-Making, previously entitled Patients’ Rights: Law and Ethics for Nurses, uses an easy-to-read style that conveys key principles in an accessible way. It: provides a clear understanding not only of basic legal provisions in health care but also of wider issues relating to human rights; covers topics such as ethical decision-making, the regulation of nursing, confidentiality, laws concerning human rights, safe practice, vulnerable people, elder abuse and employment regulations; and includes thinking points, case studies and relevant case law to help link theory with practice. This is essential reading for nurses and an important reference for midwives and allied health professionals.

The papers in this section on the legal aspects of nursing can be divided into two parts: (a) the rights and responsibilities of nurses, patients, and the medical system and (b) treatment, with its legal ramifications. How does one decide whether patients' rights or the health professional's rights are to be considered more seriously? Is there an absolute "right" or "wrong"? Since legal rights are sanctioned by constantly changing social and political climates, this may, in effect, diminish the possibility of anything absolute. The question of the "equivalency" of legal and moral rights is also addressed. Due to the prevalent vagueness with regard to bioethical issues as they affect hu man and legal rights, often we become absorbed in philosophical polemics without being able to arrive at anyone answer. In order to move beyond the ethical/theoret ical fonnulations, there is daily confrontation in the nursing profession -the practi cal application of theoretics.

The fourth edition of Legal and Ethical Issues in Nursing is the essential book that combines legal and ethical knowledge for students and practicing nurses under one cover. It reflects the continuing influence that the law, legal issues, and the field of ethics have on the professional practice of nursing. Readers familiar with earlier editions will recognize that much of the content in this text is new or updated to mirror changes in the practice of professional nursing. This edition also combines the field of ethics with legal issues, as these two aspects of professional nursing practice cannot truly be separated.

This volume combines legal and ethical knowledge for students and practicing nurses in one text. It reflects the continuing influence that the law, legal issues, and the field of ethics have on the professional practice of nursing.