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Failure to Use Siderails: When is it Negligence?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2021

Jane Greenlaw
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Extract

Nurses frequently wonder about the legal aspects of using siderails to prevent patient falls from bed. Questions arise as to when siderails are clinically indicated; whether a patient may refuse the use of siderails; whether, when a patient does fall from bed, the fall resulted from negligent failure to use siderails; and whether a decision to use siderails is a medical or nursing judgment. This article examines the legal issues involved in the use of siderails and provides some recommendations for the use of siderails and other restraints.

Liability for a patient's fall from bed is imposed according to the general principles of the law of negligence—when the patient-plaintiff can demonstrate that a particular act or omission on the part of the defendant (usually the hospital, through its nursing staff) did not conform to the accepted standard of care, and that this deviation resulted in harm to the patient.

Type
NLE Rounds
Information
Law, Medicine and Healthcare , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , June 1982 , pp. 125 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1982

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References

Annot., 9 A.L.R. 4th 149 (1981).Google Scholar
Smith v. West Calcasieu-Cameron Hosp., 251 So.2d 810 (La. App. 1971).Google Scholar
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See, e.g., Hialeah Hosp., Inc. v. Johnson. 268 So.2d 424 (Fla. App. 1972) (hospital held liable where a partially paralyzed patient fell, having been left unattended sitting on the side of her bed, despite a doctor's order that she be assisted whenever sitting).Google Scholar
See, e.g., University Community Hosp. v. Martin, 328 So.2d 858 (Fla. App. 1976) (hospital liable for a patient's injuries where a nurse improperly operated a rotating bed and part of it collapsed); Belisle v. Wilson, 313 S.W.2d 11 (Mo. 1958) (hospital liable for injuries of a patient who fell because the hospital negligently failed to provide a call bell).Google Scholar
See, e.g., Louie v. Chinese Hosp. Ass'n, 57 Cal. Rptr. 906 (Cal. App. 1967) (hospital liable under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur for injuries suffered by a neurological patient who fell from the foot of his bed with siderails in place after nurses had failed to notify the attending physician of significant changes in the patient's mental status). For a discussion of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, see Greenlaw, J., Communication Failure: Some Case Examples, Law, Medicine & Health Care 10(2):77 (April 1982).Google Scholar
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