Case Study Analysis
1) Identify the Problem
There appears to be multiple problems in this scenario. Let me identify some of the problems faced by Faith Community hospital. First and foremost, there appears to be some ethical issues affecting different associates of Faith Community. There is a division of the morals and religious beliefs among colleges and patients alike. A problem with the staff being divided is the fact that some staff does not want to perform certain medical tasks or procedures because of their moral or religious beliefs. Then of course there are the staffs that want to do above and beyond everything possible to benefit the patient in the most beneficial way possible. So we can see the division between the two. Should hospital staff do the required medical tasks and procedures regardless of their view? Are they legally responsible to do their required job regardless of their view? What about the patients who refuse certain treatment? Should the hospital be held responsible for this kind of scenario? The hospital cannot force the patient to do anything against their will, therefore if the patient refuses a particular treatment, the patient would then be liable for his or her well being. There are certain rules and regulations that the hospital needs to adhere to and it appears that there are too many loose agents roaming around. By this I meant that you have some hospital pharmacists are filling patient prescriptions out there own pocket and working out payments with the patient. And there are also counselors treating patients without the proper insurance coverage. These are some serious problems that need to be addressed.
Another huge problem is the fact that the premium costs at the hospital are increasing. They were running at $217.00 per patient per day to $240.00 per patient per day. This is a substantial increase in the costs associated with being treated at the hospital. Nobody wants to pay an increase when it comes hospital costs. At the rate things are going, the estimating costs may require the company to reduce the fixed costs by 15%. In any business, it is usually inevitable that company costs will start to escalate higher and higher. If specific action is not taken, then the company can start to face some serious financial problems.
Furthermore, when the patient's daughter arrived and asked that the transfusion be stopped, the physician did not comply. The physician argued that there was no way of knowing before the car accident and thus he was duty bound to save her life. The patient and family took matter to court as they felt not respected and violated. The court announced the physician guilty of battery. This case illustrates that such incidents can occur and with cultural experts involved at hospitals, the number of these case incidents can reduce as physicians can be explained and taught to respect patient's autonomy and preferences for their own bodies (Panico, 2017). Therefore, cultural experts should be employed in hospitals as an official policy as the population is growing and many religions need to be fully understood to avoid any privacy or religious invasion. Cultural experts will be able to provide a better patient-doctor relationship as they will be considering the patients emotions and religious beliefs with medical intervention, representing both the patient and medical
In conclusion, healthcare administrators must provide high quality care through ethically sound policy. Processes must be clear and fair and ongoing ethics training must be provided for all levels of staff responsible for patient care. They must follow their code of ethics and be self-regulating. In doing so, actions and decisions made will be reflective of a good steward of
...t them attain the services easily and at lower costs. In addition, these hospitals have the potential of managing effectively their cash flow. A fixed and proper payment system to the workers of the small health centers can m motivates them to avail quality services to the medical beneficiaries. Small hospitals can be able to have bonus payment in case they provide care in areas short of professional health. Hence, small hospital can implicate appropriately their method of payment. Conversely, there might be a risk possibility when it comes to accessing low amount due to the nature of the illness of the patients, the involvement of high cost of treatment amongst many other factors. In the vent that the overall health care costs are more than earlier anticipated, the hospital and the doctor shall receive less profits. This can have a negative impact on the hospital.
It would be necessary for a hospital administrator to look closely at ways to lower healthcare costs and provide more efficient care when a large employer like BRPP states they are thinking of relocating their employee inpatient hospital services to a company like InduShealth. InduShealth is offering substantially lower prices for several surgical procedures and a U.S. hospital administrator would not want to lose this large consumer population if it was possible to find more efficient methods of providing healthcare to their patients (McLaughlin & McLaughlin, 2008). One pricing strategy that a hospital administrator could advocate for is a bundled...
My initial response to the issues was only based on the hospital policies regarding the care of the patients within the hospital. However, when I was guided down the different paths and made to look through the different ethical lens, I found it tough to do so and seem to resort to my core values of autonomy and rationality. By putting the patients’ first, hospital policies, and then their loved ones in the first scenario, I determined that a compromise was necessary. Whereas in the second scenario, I feel as no agreement was needed just staff education (EthicsGame Simulation, 2016). In this particular case, Carlotta, the RN shift supervisor, needed further training to understand the hospital policy on who is or is not considered to be family (EthicsGame Simulation,
Providers must act in the best interest of the patient and their basic obligation is to do no harm and work for the public’s wellbeing. A physician shall always keep in mind the obligation of preserving human life. Providers must communicate full, accurate and unbiased information so patients can make informed decisions about their health care. As a result of their recommendations, providers are responsible for generating costs in health care but do not generate the need for those expenses. Every hospital has both an ethical as well as a legal responsibility to provide care, even if the care may be uncompensated.
Nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas in their practices often. Respecting a patient’s belief or choice, whether we think it is right or wrong, is a must. Jehovah Witness (JW) patients refuse blood transfusions and their life can be in danger, but that is their right to choose and nurses must respect that. Patients decide not to have a lifesaving surgery or chemotherapy, which is their personal decisions. We, as nurses, can educate and inform, but eventually it is the patient’s right to refuse or accept treatment. This writer feels that when good morals and character are in place, the best possible ethical decisions can be made. These decisions are not necessarily right or wrong, but the best choices for the patient and their care based on the patient’s right to
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.
There are a couple of problems affecting the surgical services department. One of them is that the unit /hospital pays a lot of money for surgical supplies and equipment. The second problem is labor and productivity. The two problems are included in the operational and personnel budget. These types of budgets are the highest cost to the department; personnel budget being the highest then the operational budget (Marquis & Huston, 2012).
Ashley Bassel argues because the courts decided that futility issues are not to believe resolved in court there is a bioethical issue of who is able to make the decision to resolve this dispute. 90% of hospital has a full ethics committee or small team that supposed to perform an ethics consultation. According to the AMA the function of the committee should help to resolve unusual and complicated ethical problems that affect the care and treatment of patients. However whatever the ethic committees says are recommendations not obligations for the institution. However there are many scenarios where these ethics board are unable to solve the tricky problem of upholding the patient or guardian right to make medical decisions as well as the physician’s right to refuse treatment. As well as the case making sure that conflicts on interest to not impede on any ability to make the proper call on a patient health.
Justice is the fourth and last principle of medical ethics. On all legal points, any of the situations the doctor can choose are perfectly legal, however, there is a conflict of interest in this case concerning the religious beliefs of the patient versus the religious beliefs of the parents and church. Is it admissible to perform the surgery knowing the legal guardians do not approve of the patient’s wishes?
One notable example of an ethical dilemma presented within this report is the battle of belief referring to a situation where some patients tend to reject specific medical procedures attributed to the religious, cultural, or personal beliefs. Every patient has the right to decision based on his or her beliefs thereby meaning that patients may reject specific medical procedures based on what they believe (Guido, 2014). However, this conflicts with the position of the nurses who are mandated with providing their patients with the best quality of medical services as part of promoting positive health outcomes. The best remedy for this specific ethical dilemma would involve having to hold a discussion between the nurse and the patient where the nurse would accord the patient his or her clinical
In my future role as a healthcare administrator, ethical decision making will be required to address a conflict or uncertainty regarding competing values , such as personal, professional, organizational, and societal values (Thompson, 2011). Administrators involved in this decision-making process must consider the ethical principles of justice, autonomy, beneficence, and nonmaleficence. Healthcare organizations having growing concerns over ethical issues such as:
...t is also difficult to maintain overall operations. Operations are effected simply because of health care delivering patient care which significantly declines when the overall cost continues to raise.
Faith Community Hospital, an organization who's mission statement is to promote health and well-being of the people in the communities. They serve through the extent of services provided in collaboration with the partners who share the same vision and values. Though the mission statement is the model that everyone should be following, everyone does not think the same about every issue. We all may face similar situation at one point in time but the end result may be different for each individual because we all have different values and beliefs. There are many differences between ethics, laws, beliefs, and oaths that all affect the decisions from patients to staff members. Some patients refuse to take medical services and there are staff members who refuse to provide certain services due to those value lines. Some of the staff members are caring so much for the patients that they sometimes take radical positions to respond to their well-beings. In these situations medical intervention can conflict with religious beliefs or personal moral convictions. Hospital pharmacists are even taking positions which they believe to be important such as filling uninsured prescriptions by accepting payments in installments. Staff members in ICU initiated Do Not Resuscitate procedures with out written orders. Doctors are putting patients first from various interpretations. In "right to die" situations the doctors seem to be getting too involved in compassion and passions with their patients. We need to stay focused on what our jobs are and what we are promoting which is to provide healthcare and its services to members of the communities. Counselors are also treating some of their clients with no authorization of the values and beliefs they have. On the other hand, there are some staff members within the hospital who refuse to serve patients unless they have confirmed insurance coverage. If a patient is to pass away because of unauthorized decisions, this can cause a stir with the media as well as with current or future patients in the community.