Hospital Protocol Revision and Annotated Bibliography Within every hospital, clinic, private practice or similar health care facilitator, a strict set of institutional protocols and policies is used to govern the conduct of physicians, nurses, orderlies and any other employees responsible for the delivery of health care at the highest standard. The John Dempsey Hospital at the University of Connecticut Health Center currently maintains a protocol regarding identification and treatment of patients who are suspected of being child abuse victims. Although this protocol is comprehensive in nature, providing health care professionals with clear guidelines to apply during interactions with young patients who are possibly being abused, the rate of reported child abuse cases deriving from the John Dempsey Hospital has fallen behind national and state averages. The purpose of this paper is to implement meaningful changes to the current child abuse policy in place at the John Dempsey Hospital, in order to increase the recent reduction in child abuse reporting.

Policy Overview

Under the Patient Care section of the John Dempsey Hospital's Administrative Manual, Protocol #08-085 falls under the subject of Abuse: Child, and states unequivocally that patients under the age of 18 have the right to be free of exploitation and abuse, and that "the hospital will protect these patients from neglect, exploitation, and abuse that could occur while the patient is receiving care, treatment, and services & #8230; (by) evaluating and reporting allegations, observations, and suspected cases of neglect, exploitation, and abuse to appropriate authorities based on its evaluation of the suspected events, or as required by law." The policy mandates that hospital employees remain vigilant in monitoring for signs of potential child abuse, and...

Under the current protocol, the hospital itself is required to report cases of suspected child abuse, but the term "mandated reporter" is not sufficiently clarified, leaving nurses and physicians to assume that the other party may have already reported observable evidence. In order to conform to "mandated reporter" statutes implemented in several other states, the John Dempsey Hospital should revise its child abuse protocol to specifically state that nurses are mandated reporters in addition to physicians, and that every hospital employee working with the child is mandated to report their own suspicions. Research on the reporting role of nurses has shown that "nurses are specifically identified as mandatory reporters in a majority of state child protection statutes & #8230; (and) that the nurse's duty to report child abuse trumps the nurse's duty of confidentiality" (Kearney, 2007), which is why this change represents an important step towards ensuring that all child patients who are being abused have their cases reported, and that no case is overlooked simply because one party's assumption that another has already reported their suspicions. With respect to the prevailing research…