Immense changes and development in the ethics committee (IECs) have been happening in various health institutions due to the struggle occurring between the hospital administrators, health care professionals, legal authorities, regulatory agencies, patients and their families in the adoption of the best decisions in applying life-sustaining and resuscitative technologies (Hajobabaee et al. , 2016). Implementation of good policies by the ethical committee can prevent physicians and hospitals from requesting for court’s opinions apart from the extreme cases. According to Hajobabaee et al. (2016) , ethical committee consultations help minimize the risks originating from poor communication that occurs between the physician and patient, and from families perceptions that matter. Ethical committee active inclusion of the patients and their families in the medical dilemmas, taking their ideas seriously, and mediating in cases of conflict help prevent resentment among the parties involved that leads to suit.
The healthcare facilities receiving any Medicaid should acknowledge the power of attorney, living will, and DNR advance directives (Hajibabaee et al., 2016). The law also requires the medical institutions to ask for the patients’ additional information concerning their advance directives to be adopted in life-threatening scenarios that call for a life-death decision. According to Hajibabaee et al. (2016) , ethical committee steps in to ensure the advance directive of a patient is thoroughly followed according to the PSDA rules in cases of an emergency. The ethical committee intermediate in difficult situations involving a patient's rights, end of life care, and conflict between physicians and family to come up with the best decisions when the patient is incapacitated and thus, an attorney steps in to choose for them. The PSDA guidelines provide a framework through which the ethical committee can make the best choices that fully benefits the people involved as well as the patients.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Responses
Hello Bridget,
I like that you highlight the individual care reviews, developments, and policy reviews as the main connections between the ethics committee and enforcements of advance directives. Your description of the purpose of the ethics committee in developing policies relating to end of life care to maintain a high degree of autonomy while meeting the requirements of the PSDA is commendable. It is commendable how you explain the other consultation services ethics committee offer relating to DNR orders, patient autonomy, and refusal of medical treatments. I like your idea of ethics committee operations in addressing ethical and legal issues among their patients safeguarding the health institution's future through increasing productivity, reducing cases of lawsuits, avoidance of unethical activities. You can also include ethical committee active inclusion of the patients and their families in the medical dilemmas, taking their ideas seriously and mediating in cases of conflict to prevent resentment that leads to lawsuits.
Hello Bren,
Your beginning is superb with the description of an ethical dilemma as a scenario where an individual faces a difficult problem leading to unsatisfactory decisions due to the underlying principles. I like your presentation of the ethical committee as the body necessary to provide counsel in these dilemmas in the medical institutions, concerning patient's rights, end of life decisions and conflicts in the family that are unlikely to agree on the best decisions in cases where the patient is incapacitated. It is commendable that you highlight the need for the ethical committee to follow the PSDA rule in honoring the patient's advance directive to ensure their wishes are followed to the latter. I like that you pinpoint the need for healthcare institutions to always ask their patients on their plans relating to the advance directives. Consequently, your work needs to include information on the importance of advance directives, which increases the number of people applying for advance directives.
Hello Tyler ,
It is commendable how you describe the PSDA’s goal, as a providence of an opportunity to the patients in the healthcare and nursing homes to understand choices in end of life scenarios allowing them to obtain a durable power of attorney and advance directives. Your depiction of the role of the ethics committee in the overall decisions making concerning signing the power of attorney and advance directives is commendable. I appreciate your description on the importance of a good relationship between the ethics committee and PSDA rules when it comes to the end of life scenarios. Your attribution of the ethical committee’s success to incorporating members of the community as well as various physicians is also appraisable. However, you could also include the need for ethical committee active inclusion of the patients and their families in the medical dilemmas, taking their ideas seriously and mediating in cases of conflict to help prevent any forms of resentment among the parties involved.
Reference
Hajibabaee, F., Joolaee, S., Cheraghi, M. A., Salari, P., & Rodney, P. (2016). Hospital/clinical ethics committeesâ notion: An overview. Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine , 9 , 1-9.
