Impaired Nursing Practice
The impaired nursing practice has been one of the critical issues in the nursing field. Due to the easy access to drugs of various types and strengths, often times highly addictive drugs, the impaired nurse is being a huge issue these days. There are many reasons that could lead to the impaired nurses, among them, working long hours in high stress environment could be the one. This paper will explore the impaired nursing practice, the purpose of choosing to discuss about the impaired nurse, current relevance to the impaired nurse practice, how the impaired nurse integrated into clinical practice, how the information is used in clinical setting, and closing thoughts of the impaired nurse.
The Impaired Nursing Practice There could be various …show more content…
There are many examples that show both the impaired nurses and the patients are extremely affected by the impaired nurse practices. One example is that in 2009, by injecting himself with patients' pain medicine and refilling the syringes with saline, a hospital technician infected at least 46 patients with hepatitis (Budryk, 2014). It was the third hepatitis outburst due to the worker use of patient syringes, the other two were happened in Denver and Jacksonville, Fla., therefore, according to federal records, hundreds of healthcare workers were disciplined or prosecuted for drug diversion or similar misconduct (Budryk, 2014). Therefore, early detection of the problems and effective treatments are vital for the substance misuse and addiction, in order to restore the quality of the life of the impaired nurse and provide safety to the patients (Huston, 2017). Substance misuse and addiction are diseases that can cost lives, if the intervention and treatment were delayed, while they can be treated successfully by recognizing early and treating aggressively. However, “Over 95% of self-identified impaired nurses were currently employed and unknown to their employers as having a substance use problem” (Huston, 2016, p. 295). This information shows that the impaired nurses put the patients and themselves at risk by continuing the critical nature of substance use
The Impaired Nursing Practice There could be various …show more content…
There are many examples that show both the impaired nurses and the patients are extremely affected by the impaired nurse practices. One example is that in 2009, by injecting himself with patients' pain medicine and refilling the syringes with saline, a hospital technician infected at least 46 patients with hepatitis (Budryk, 2014). It was the third hepatitis outburst due to the worker use of patient syringes, the other two were happened in Denver and Jacksonville, Fla., therefore, according to federal records, hundreds of healthcare workers were disciplined or prosecuted for drug diversion or similar misconduct (Budryk, 2014). Therefore, early detection of the problems and effective treatments are vital for the substance misuse and addiction, in order to restore the quality of the life of the impaired nurse and provide safety to the patients (Huston, 2017). Substance misuse and addiction are diseases that can cost lives, if the intervention and treatment were delayed, while they can be treated successfully by recognizing early and treating aggressively. However, “Over 95% of self-identified impaired nurses were currently employed and unknown to their employers as having a substance use problem” (Huston, 2016, p. 295). This information shows that the impaired nurses put the patients and themselves at risk by continuing the critical nature of substance use