Squadron7 said:
Moxley said:
East of DFW. We are still on the upswing. Nurse ratios over the last week or so have been to the point where some are considering invoking "Safe Harbor."
This is some thing a nurse would never ever want to do.
I'll bite. What is "Safe Harbor"?
The Texas Board of Nursing requires nurses to act within defined guidelines for the safe care of their patients. If a nurse accepts a patient assignment and there is some violation of duty of care, the BON can discipline the nurse up to possible revocation of licensure. Generally speaking, the board doesn't care how busy you are. If a mistake is made in the care of a patient, you are responsible and held accountable.
If a nurse genuinely believes an assignment is unsafe and the proper duty of care cannot be guaranteed, they can invoke part of the Nurse Practice Act called "safe harbor." Safe harbor, when declared at the beginning of an assignment, can shield the nurse from board discipline in the event of something bad happening on the shift. Facilities are required to bring the request to a peer review committee and are forbidden from retaliating against the nurse. Invoking safe harbor creates a lot of headaches for nursing management and in general, the nurses who do this become pariahs and get run off.
