As I was reading "Patient Injury: Who's the Fall Guy Here?" (Legal Questions, June 2009),* one phrase caught my attention. The author advised documenting a fall by writing, "found patient on the floor."

In my hospital we've been advised to remove the word "found" from our vocabulary because of legal implications. If you document that a patient was "found" on the floor, you could be implying that you'd previously "lost" the patient. Now we document that a patient was "observed" on the floor instead.

-COLLEEN SCHUBERT, RN

Kingston, N.H.

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