Legislation Regulating Nursing
As in any field of human activity, legislation plays a critical role in healthcare. For specialists such as nurses, this aspect is crucial. This is because knowledge of the law enables them to avoid potential litigation and to be more confident in the services they provide to individuals and in their activities in general. Statutory and regulatory laws are the most commonly applied to professional nursing. Awareness of their role in these healthcare providers helps highlight the most valuable aspects of conducting high-quality, ethical practices.
Statutory Laws
First, it is necessary to pay attention to how statutory laws are implemented in healthcare and in nurses’ work. This classification of the law includes the creation of legal initiatives by such important bodies as Congress, state legislative bodies, and city councils (Guido, 2020). The primary function of the statutes that they develop is to declare, command, or prohibit. These legal initiatives are of particular value across the entire medical services sphere, as they define the details of provider operations and delineate the boundaries of their activities. It is also worth noting that, for nurses, statutory laws include nursing license laws, statutes of limitations, protective and reporting laws, natural death acts, and informed consent laws. All of them carry a legal and ethical subtext, which is critically important in this area of providing services to the population.
Regulatory Laws
Another type of law most often applied to nurses’ work is regulatory law. The main difference between this classification by law is that it is created and enforced by administrative agencies to implement statutory law. In other words, they imply the introduction of certain norms and rules that will make it necessary to follow the necessary natural acts. These legal initiatives also serve as a guide for conducting nursing practice. Violations of this law may result in serious consequences, including lawsuits, dismissal, and disqualification.
Legal Problems in an Example
Workplace safety violations are among the most common problems under statutory law. This aspect implies a violation of the norms and conditions governing the performance of medical activities by healthcare workers. One example of this issue is the case that occurred at Oregon State Hospital. In this facility, the medical worker was “bleeding from the forehead, his foot and ankle fractured, and his ribs cracked from a patient assaulting and biting him” (Wyatt, 2023, para. 1). This case is one of the examples of how the healthcare organization has violated the basic legislative norms regarding the provision of a safe workplace for employees.
An analysis by the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that the hospital had at least three severe workplace safety violations. Among them, “lost time at work, provide recommendations for assault prevention, and maintain consistent incident reports” were highlighted (Wyatt, 2023, para. 4). Based on the data obtained, the facility was fined $54,000, and it was also provided with several recommendations on how major workplace violations can be limited. These measures imply developing procedures to establish security within the organization and creating a system to evaluate and respond to incidents.
References
Guido, G. W. (2020). Legal and ethical issues in nursing (7th ed.). Prentice Hall.
Wyatt, S. (2023). State Hospital corrects Oregon OSHA violations, but employees say ‘it’s not enough‘. Statesman Journal.