I am at a hospital in Erie, Pa. I am interested in knowing if other Pennsylvania facilities are requiring a consent for PICC insertions.
Please respond if the doctors are obtaining consents for PICC insertions at your Pa faciliity. If they are obtaining these consents, it is a facility regulation or a state regulation? I appreciate your help.
We obtain a nursing consent for our PICC insertions at Chester County Hospital, West Chester, PA. This consent is obtained by the vascular access nurses. This document remains as a part of the medical record. In a summary the consent is stating that the patient knows the ill effects of the procedure, and other vascular access options.
PA law mandates that the Physician must obtain consent (explaining indications, procedure, potential complications and alternatives) for a PICC insertion. The nurse can wittness the signature as with any other "informed" consent.
How can there be such variations in interpretation of the law by 2 nurses from the same state?
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, NPD-BC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
Website http://www.hadawayassociates.com
Office Phone 770-358-7861
In Pa. we always obtained our own consents. How could a physician describe fully a procedure he has nothing to do with?. If a Vascular Access Nurse does the procedure than the Vascular Access nurse gets the consent.
Jack
About 7 yrs ago DOH came into the hospital where I was employed and pulled our PICC consent. At that time we were placing the ordering physician's name on the consent and we obtained and signed the consent as the nurse performing the procedure. They told us that we had to have the physician sign the consent. We argued that the physician only ordered the procedure and we were the one doing the procedure and we should obtain and sign the consent. We then changed the consent to meet DOH. Two years later DOH came back and questioned why we were not signing the consent since we, the PICC nurses were inserting the PICC. So once again paperwork was changed to meet their standard and thus the physicians were happy.
I now work in a different hospital in PA and we obtain the consent as the inserting nurse.
Margaret
I work in a Delaware hospital. Our PICC consent has two parts. The first part explains that the physician has discussed the procedure with the patient/patient representative and must be signed by the ordering physician. The second part says that the patient gives consent for the PICC nurse to insert the PICC and is signed by the nurse doing the procedure.
TLTHNG
I would suggest you go to the source for this information, rather than this forum. Find out from your Board of Nursing, they decide what needs consent for nursing procedures and who needs to get it. If they tell you "it is up to the hospital" then you need to ask your Legal or Risk management department in your hospital how they want it handled. Good luck.
Chris Cavanaugh, RN, BSN, CRNI, VA-BC