What is the legal term for leaving a patient at the emergency department without providing a verbal report to the receiving facility or next caregiver?

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Abandonment is the term used when a clinician ends care for a patient without ensuring someone else will continue that care or without providing essential transfer information. In the emergency setting, once you’ve taken responsibility for a patient, you must arrange for a safe handoff to the next caregiver or facility, including a verbal report of the patient’s condition, treatments given, and ongoing needs. If you leave without that handoff, you’re discontinuing care in a way that can expose the patient to harm and create liability for the lack of continuity.

This differs from negligence, which is a broader failure to meet the standard of care that results in harm. False imprisonment involves restraining a patient against their will, and battery is intentional harmful touching; neither describes leaving without a proper transfer report. In practice, proper handoff (often using SBAR or similar tools) is a key part of safe patient care and legal responsibility.