A client is receiving home health care to complete intravenous antibio

QUESTION

A client is receiving home health care to complete intravenous antibiotics. The nurse is scheduled to visit every other day to check the site and make sure the client’s wife is administering the medications safely and correctly.

Both the client and his wife verbalize understanding of the symptoms of an infiltration, and the importance of reporting it immediately. With a scheduled visit 2 days later, the nurse finds the site red and swollen and the client’s arm tender. There is no indication that the client or his wife notified the nurse or home health agency. The lack of which condition will make it difficult to prove negligence on the nurse’s part?

1. The nurse owed a duty to the client.
2. The standard of care was not met.
3. The action or inaction of the nurse directly caused the injury.
4. Failure to act would cause harm to the client.

ANSWER:

Answer: 3

Rationale: The action or inaction of the nurse did not directly cause injury to the client. The client and his wife are responsible for reporting signs of infiltration to the home health nurse, so there was no indication the client’s injury resulted directly from the nurse’s action or inaction. The home health nurse owed a duty to the client, as he was assigned to this nurse. The standard of care in this situation is to ensure that the client and his wife understands the symptoms of infiltration and that they report it immediately. Therefore, the standard was met. If the nurse knew of the infiltration and failed to act, then this condition would have been met. However, the client and his wife did not notify the nurse.