Several nurses at Hospital X are concerned that agency policies related to restraint and seclusion and

Question

documentation practices are inadequate.

The understanding about the relation of substandard
institutional policies and individual nursing practice that should guide nursing practice is
a. the policies do not absolve the individual nurse of the responsibility to practice
according to professional standards of nursing care.
b. agency policies are considered by the courts to be the legal standard by which the
professional nurse must act and therefore override the American Nurses
Association standards of care.
c. in an institution with substandard policies, the nurse has a responsibility to inform
the supervisor and leave the premises without delay.
d. interpretation by the judicial system will be rendered on an individual basis and
therefore cannot be predicted.

Answer 1

ANS: A
Nurses are professionally bound to uphold the American Nurses Association standards of practice
regardless of lesser standards established by a health care agency or a state. Conversely, if the
agency standards are higher than the American Nurses Association standards of practice, the agency
standards must be upheld. The courts may seek to establish the standard of care through the use of
expert witnesses when the issue is clouded.