A nurse is completing an admission assessment on a client who has been transferred to the unit. The client has a history of falls and confusion. The nurse forgets to initiate any fall risk prevention as indicated by the hospital policy, and later during the shift, the client falls and sustains a wrist fracture. Which legal tort is the nurse at risk for from this situation?

Slander refers to spoken defamation of a person's character. Since this situation does not involve any spoken statements that defame the client, slander is not applicable. Malpractice is a specific type of negligence that occurs when a healthcare professional fails to perform their duties to the required standard, resulting in harm to a patient. While closely related, in this scenario, the broader term negligence more accurately describes the failure to follow hospital policy. Battery involves intentional and wrongful physical contact with a person without their consent, causing harm. In this situation, the nurse's failure to prevent the fall is not an intentional act, so battery is not applicable. Negligence occurs when someone fails to take reasonable care to avoid causing injury or loss to another person. In this case, the nurse's failure to initiate fall risk prevention measures, as required by hospital policy, resulted in the client falling and sustaining a wrist fracture, making the nurse at risk for negligence.