Course Information
Overview: This course is a continuation of nursing malpractice issues and cases and focuses on issues related to home health care and medication administration, from a care delivery perspective. Other content that will be studied includes issues related to health care fraud and abuse, fraud in medical malpractice claims, and common areas of breech of standards of practice. Students will then examine more advanced issues and content related to the filing of cases and the the processes of litigation prior to court room activity. Issues related to interrogatories, expert witnesses and testimonies, depositions, defense perspectives and issues related to settlements of cases. Roles of the LNC are also examined, especially related to court room consulting. Course Code: ALNC 640. 45 hours of continuing education credit.
Instructor/Course Author: Dominick L. Flarey, Ph.D, MBA, RN,BC, LNC-CSp.
Link to Resume
Prerequisite: You must have successfully complete the continuing education course ALNC 600: Advanced LNC I: Theories and Specialties, and ALNC 620: Advanced LNC II : Issues in Acute & Critical Care,” before you can enroll into this course.
TIME FRAME: You are allotted two years from the date of enrollment, to complete this course. There are no set time-frames, other than the two year allotted time. If you do not complete the course within the two-year time-frame, you will be removed from the course and an “incomplete” will be recorded for you in our records. Also, if you would like to complete the course after this two-year expiration time, you would need to register and pay the course tuition fee again.
TEXTBOOKS: There is one (1) required textbook for this course.
Nursing Malpractice (3rd edition). By: Patricia W. Iyer, RN, MSN, LNCC, and Barbara J. Levin. Lawyers & Judges Publishing Co., 2007. ISBN-10# 1933264209.
NOTE: this is a 1,400 page comprehensive textbook. It is the textbook that is used for all (4) of the courses in this continuing education program sequence.
This book now is on a CD-ROM and is in PDF format. For the best price please order directly from the publisher: link to order.
Ordering Information:
This book now is on a CD-ROM and is in PDF format. For the best price please order directly from the publisher: link to order.
You may also call to order this book directly from the publisher:
Phone: 1-800-209-7109
GRADING: You must achieve a passing score of at least 70% to complete this course and receive the 45 hours of awarded continuing education credit. There are no letter grades assigned. You will receive notice of your score as “pass” or “fail”. Those who score below the minimum of 70% will be contacted by the American College of Legal Nurse Consulting and options for completing additional course work to achieve a passing score, will be presented.
Assignment/Exam: this course consists of the student developing a comprehensive Learning Portfolio. The learning portfolio is a study/guide format in which students respond to specific questions as they read/study the text materials. Upon completing the learning portfolio, you will turn it in to the American College of Legal Nurse Consulting for grading. There is no objective -type exam for this course.
BOARD APPROVALS: AIHCP is an approved provider of continuing education by the Florida Board of Nursing and the District of Columbia Board of Nursing. CE Provider # 50-11975. Access information
The American Institute of Health Care Professionals (The Provider) is approved by the California Board of Registered Nurses, Provider number # CEP 15595 for 45 Contact Hours.
Course Refund & AIHCP Policies: access here
Online Classroom Resources and Tools
* Examination Access: there is link to take you right to the online examination program where you can print out your examination and work with it. All examinations are formatted as “open book” tests. When you are ready, you can access the exam program at anytime and click in your responses to the questions. Full information is provided in the online classrooms.
* Student Resource Center: there is a link for access to a web page “Student Resource Center.” The Resource Center provides for easy access to all of our policies/procedures and additional information regarding applying for certification. We also have many links to many outside reference sites, such as online libraries that you may freely access.
* Online Evaluation: there is a link in the classroom where you may access the course evaluation. All students completing a course, must, without exception, complete the course evaluation.
* Faculty Access Information: you will have access to your instructor’s online resume/biography, as well as your instructor’s specific contact information.
* Additional Learning Materials: some faculty have prepared additional “readings” and /or brief lecture notes to enhance your experience. All of these are available in the online classrooms.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:
1. Review managed care issues related to home health care.
2. Review comprehensive standards for home health care nursing from a variety of sources.
3. Identify and discuss the components of the home health care medical record.
4. Identify the most common standard of care issues in home health care.
5. Review and discuss a home health care malpractice case.
6. Identify and review the process and strategies for case screening in a home health care malpractice case.
7. Identify common liabilities and defenses in home health care litigation.
8. Discuss medication errors related to malpractice claims.
9. Categorize and discuss medication errors by severity.
10. Identify and discuss high risk medications as related to potentials for malpractice claims.
11. Define various patient sustained injuries and harm related to medications and medication errors.
12. Identify and discuss nursing responsibilities following medication errors.
13. Define and discuss health care fraud and abuse.
14. Discuss the processes of claimed fraud actions.
15. Identify how nurses might contribute to fraud and abuse.
16. Discuss state boards of nursing involvement in fraud/abuse cases.
17. Identify attorney-client issues related to fraud/abuse cases.
18. Define and discuss “Qui Tam” as related to fraud/abuse cases.
19. Identify issues related to alleged fraud in a malpractice case.
20. Identify and discuss common nursing breeches of standards of care.
21. Review and discuss elements of negligence.
22. Identify and discuss issues and documents for case intake from the plaintiff perspective.
23. Define the entire review and preparation of a malpractice case from the plaintiff perspective.
24. Identify appropriate requests of documents for production in plaintiff based malpractice cases.
25. Define preparation and process for depositions.
26. Discuss issues related to settling a claim.
27. Discuss issues related to the “defense” perspective of medical and nursing malpractice claims.
28. Define the process of preparing for defense of a malpractice claim.
29. Discuss professional Codes of Ethics and how they related to malpractice cases.
30. Discuss limitations of the Legal Nurse Consultant’s role.
31. Discuss employment and career opportunities for legal nurse consultants.
32. Review and identify major consultation components of a medical case review.
33. Define issues related to use of nurses as expert witnesses.
34. Discuss qualifications required for expert witness testimony by nurses.
35. Identify the process for acquiring, working with and preparing expert nurse witness testimony.
36. Discuss issues related to expert witness testimony in a court of law.
37. Define Life Care Plan and its major uses.
38. Discuss the process and steps in preparing a life care plan.
39. Discuss the evaluation process of a life care plan in preparation for testimony.
COURSE CONTENT:
A brief abstract of content:
1. Home health nursing malpractice
2. Home health care nursing standards
3. Home health care medical records
4. Liability issues in home care
5. Defense strategies in home care cases
6. Case studies in home care negligence
7. Issues related to medication administration and malpractice claims
8. Categories and types of medication errors including severity
9. Detection and prevention of medication errors
10. Errors related to intravenous therapy
11. Health care fraud and abuse
12. Self – referrals and kickbacks
13. Nursing issues related to fraud and abuse
14. Attorney-client issues related to fraud and abuse
14. Fraud in medical malpractice cases
15. Common nursing breaches of the standard of care
16. Elements of negligence
17. Client intake and interviews
18. Filing claims in state or federal courts
19. Issues regarding professional liability insurance
20. Identifying defendants in the case
21. Interrogatories and requests for production
22. Depositions
23. Legal doctrines and liability
24. Settlements before trial
25. Preparing a case of malpractice
26. The defense perspective in malpractice cases
27. Answering interrogatories
28. Defensive the case and depositions
29. Review of medical records related to the defense of the case
30. Roles and qualifications of legal nurse consultants
31. Confidentiality issues of work product
32. Limitations of the legal nurse consultants role
33. Legal nurse consultants as independent consultants versus employees
34. Case summaries of nursing malpractice cases
35. Use of expert witnesses in nursing malpractice cases
36. Qualifications of the nurse expert witness
37. Screening experts and preparing documents
38. Preparing experts for deposition and trial testimony
39. Life care plans and components of the planned
40. Ethical considerations in life care planning