Safe Harbor – Night Shift Nurse, Essay Example

Safe harbors are actions applied by employees or judges when the law does not require a penalty for non-compliance or constitutes a vague standard.  Essentially, the actual rule of distributing tasks to nurses after you have reviewed physicians’ orders does not constitute that these nurses have a right to comply with your task allocations. A notable omission from the allocation process was the supervisor discussing beforehand the reviews of physicians’ orders with any of the nurses to whom tasks were allocated. The question of how involved the nurses’ were is a predominant factor in every nurse on duty claiming Safe Harbor for one reason or another. Obviously, they were dissatisfied with either the tasks allocation or the process whereby it was undertaken.

This process appeared to be very autocratic in execution. If the supervisor is new and do not have a rapport with these nurses then it is easy not to cooperate and apply mental mechanisms to circumvent the leadership. One such mechanism is to collaboratively claim Safe Harbor for one reason or another. Another important omission to the process was whether the task allocations were compatible with each nurse practice portfolio. For example, was the supervisor asking a nursing assistant to administer medications; or a registered nurse to bed bath a patient?

These are discrepancies in the task allocation, which unknowingly might have occurred if the allocating nurse was not fully knowledgeable regarding the capabilities of the staffing during that shift. This reaction also indicates subtle apprehension to the leadership style which might have been unusual to what the nurses in that unit were accustomed to.