Ethical Principles In Health Care

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Applying Ethical Principals Ethical principals are extremely important to understand in the healthcare field. Ethical responsibilities in any situation depend on the role of the healthcare worker and the nature of the decision being made. Healthcare administrators and professionals must make ethical decisions that can be an everyday or controversial situation. When making such decisions, it is imperative to consider the four major principles of ethics: autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and distributive. By using these four principles, ethical decisions can effectively be made. For the purpose of this paper, examined will be the example of the treatment of an uninsured homeless patient. Poor health care be a cause and a result of homelessness. …show more content…

A decision to treat a homeless, uninsured patient based on this principle may be justified because the provider may decide that providing such care will provide a benefit that is greater than the financial loss. This concept must also consider billing regulations and finding an approach to a solution that will specifically benefit the patient on a longer-term basis (Weiner, 2001). Cost is a major issue when it comes to healthcare and obtaining necessary care, and the dilemma to provide such care is extremely common in the healthcare industry. All care given to patients should be done with the intent to benefit the individual and improve their …show more content…

With the example of dealing with an uninsured homeless patient, distributive justice is extremely important. Distributive justice deals with the allocation of resources, such as finances and the time a provider spends with each patient. The need is the issue which is measured by risk. While it would be unjust to not treat a homeless individual due to being uninsured, it would mean an ethical dilemma for the provider. While turning such patient away could be morally wrong for a healthcare worker, looking at the distributive principle is important in order to decide the best course of action of how to treat the individual with available

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