Resolution: DUTY TO REPORT

New Jersey Nurse, May/Jun 2004

Resolved that:

1. NJSNA will design material to educate nurses about their duty to report and will distribute; these materials through the NJSNA website, through informational pamphlets and through formal educational programs.

2. NJSNA will provide export advice to nurses who, in good faith, report illegal, egregiously unethical, incompetent or impaired practice to their institutions' administrators or to a higher legal authority such as the Board of Nursing or the Department of Health and Senior Services.

3. NJSNA will encourage, the development of data collection systems within health care institutions that will recognize emerging patterns of frequent terminations, high rates of death, high rates of cardiac arrest or other unexpected or unexplained morbidities which may suggest incompetent, impaired or illegal practice on the part of an individual nurse.

4. NJSNA will cooperate with nursing administrators to assure that institutional systems are in place which will allow nurses to report, in good faith, instances of egregiously unethical, incompetent, illegal or impaired practice, without jeopardizing their employment and without risking reprisal.