Ethical Issue #1: Malpractice and Negligence
Health care providers have a key responsibility towards ensuring that they provide their patients with the best possible care while ensuring that they advance the general quality of care services at all times. However, some of the actions by health care providers may result in issues of malpractice and negligence, which may have serious implications on the patients. In some cases, the issue of malpractice may result in a situation where patients suffer death or increased severity of their medical conditions. The ethical issue of malpractice and negligence arises from a situation where health care providers fail to engage in due diligence when dealing with individual patients (Stamm, Korzick, Beech, & Wood, 2016). That means that the health providers fail in their approach to ensuring that the quality of care services that they provide to their patients indeed matches what is expected depending on the symptoms.
Concrete Experience
Objective
News articles have always focused on the issue of medical malpractice with the focus being towards highlighting its impacts on patients. In one of these cases, the case of Eugenia A. Snowden, who died 15 months after a surgical sponge was left inside her abdomen after surgery, is seen as one of the key cases to note. In a news article published within the Dayton Daily News, what is clear is that the woman’s husband remains convinced of the fact that medical malpractice can be considered as key leading to the death of his wife back in 2010 (Gokavi, 2014). That arises from the fact that a surgical team, which was led by a Wright State Physicians doctor, actually left a laparotomy sponge at Miami Valley Hospital. The presence of the sponge in her body would later have serious implications on her health; thus, serving as a key factor contributing to her untimely death.
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Subjective
From the case, what is evident is that health care facilities remain liable for the fact that health care teams fail to practice due diligence leading to serious health complications. In this case, the health team, led by a Wright State Physicians doctor, sought to conduct a surgery on behalf of Miami Valley Hospital leading to the malpractice. From a general perspective, it can be argued that the death of the woman, which caused serious implications on her family, occurred as a direct impact of the medical malpractice case. Her husband, who was suing the health facility, sought to reflect on the fact that Snowden’s death may have come as a direct result of the malpractice by the health team involved in her surgery.
Reflective Observation
Malpractice and negligence are likely to arise from a situation where health care providers ignore specific aspects of care touching on the individual patient. In an example of a case scenario, the fact that a physician may give a medical discharge for a patient without considering all symptoms, which would later result in serious medical issues, serves as a clear indication of a medical malpractice. The impact that such cases tend to have include death of the patient or, in some cases, increased complications. The impacts stretch towards the patients’ families, as they are expected to bear the burden of death with the complications noted. Personally, I would say that my frame of reference changed significantly after analyzing the issue, as the case I identified provided me with a clear understanding of the exact impacts that such cases are likely to have on the patients.
Ethical Issue #2: Informed Consent
Before a patient is taken through a given health care procedure, the patient or a close family member is expected to sign an informed consent form. Grady (2015) argues that lack of an informed consent results in a situation where a medical treatment or approach taken as part of the treatment process would not be considered as being legal. In most cases, any negative outcome resulting from a medical process in which the patient has not signed an informed consent may be viewed as having resulted from the facility in question. Ultimately, this highlights the need for having to ensure that the patients are able to sign an informed consent form, which gives health care providers with the authority to undertake medical treatment.
Concrete Experience
Objective
Hennepin County Medical Center in Minnesota was involved in conducting clinical trials of the drug Ketamine in 2018 as part of its assessment of the viability of the drug in use within the health care environment. However, the clinical trials raised serious questions on whether the persons involved in the trial had been well informed through an informed consent. That resulted in the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) seeking to suspend the clinical trials on the basis of the informed consent (Fassbender, 2018). Both agencies sought to suggest that the informed consent failed to meet the expected standards in health care, as it did not consider the overall implications that the drug would have on the patients. That serves as a clear indication of the value that is placed on the informed consent as part of medical procedures.
Subjective
In the case, what is evident is that the idea of having to use the informed consent is driven by the fact that it must provide the persons involved in the clinical trials with all information touching on the impacts of the drug. That means that the Hennepin County Medical Center had a key responsibility towards advancing its informed consent to include all information that would be vital for the patients. When considering the issue of the informed consent, it becomes clear that it seeks to ensure that patients are protected at all times with regard to the medical procedures taken. That means that health facilities are expected to maximize on a standard approach to providing quality care depending on the information they provide through the informed consent.
Reflective Observation
The main stakeholder to consider when dealing with the issue of the informed consent is the patient, who is expected to go through a medical treatment approach that he or she may not understand. Using the informed consent, the patient would be in a rather effective position allowing him or her to understand some of the risks that are likely to arise from the medical procedure that is being undertaken. From a nursing perspective, this allows for nurses to protect themselves from possible legal liabilities, which are likely to arise in the event that the outcomes are negative for the individual patients. The frame of references associated with the issue of informed consent provided me with a clear framework through which to understand the value and importance associated with ensuring that the informed consent is both accurate and truthful in the information it provides.
Ethical Issue #3: Patient Confidentiality
Patient confidentiality is considered as one of the key ethical issues that must be considered in any given health care environment. The Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act (HIPAA) has put in place a wide array of guidelines on how health care providers would be able to maintain patient confidentiality while advancing accountability (Wong, Lavoie, Browne, MacLeod, & Chongo, 2015). Violation of patient confidentiality may have serious implications on the patients but may also expose health facilities to the possibility of legal and ethical consequences. That serves as a clear indication of the need to build on efficiency in advancing patient confidentiality at all times.
Concrete Experience
Objective
The National Health Service (NHS), which is the national health care system in the United Kingdom, has been confronted with issues of breaching patient privacy by sharing patient information with third parties. In a news report published within The Independent, the NHS is accused of sharing private patient information with Home Office, which would seek to target foreigners (Bulman, 2017). The news report points to the fact that the Home Office was given access to confidential patient information with an intention of having to ensure that it is able to advance its immigration enforcement. That means that for the NHS to give access to such information, it must have worked towards ensuring that it goes beyond its legal and ethical expectation to maintain patient confidentiality. That means that the NHS engaged in an action that can be categorized as being unethical and unlawful suggesting that it failed to match overall expectations in enhancing the general quality of patient care.
Subjective
The demand for patient confidentiality is driven by the need to ensure that the health organizations work towards maintaining high standards of privacy based on the information that they share. That means that it becomes important for the organizations to actually build on an effective framework that would ensure that individual patient information remains private at all times. In the event that such information is shared with a third party, the implications that it is likely to have on the patients is significant. The sharing of such information also goes against the right to privacy for the patients, which is a right that is guaranteed of individual patients, who expect that the health facilities involved would be able to protect their privacy. In the news report, what is evident is that the actual sharing of information by the NHS was in serious breach of privacy for the patients.
Reflective Observation
The impact that the issue of confidentiality is likely to have on the patients is that it would lead to a situation where a patient’s health information is leaked to a third party. The right to privacy is expected to ensure that patient information is only shared between a health provider and the patient. On the society, the issue of patient confidentiality is likely to have a positive impact towards ensuring that more patients actually build on their general confidence levels in the services that they receive in health care facilities. Personally, I tend to view the issue of patient confidentiality from the perspective that each health provider has a key responsibility towards ensuring that they maintain high standards in matters of privacy.
References
Bulman, M. (2017). NHS accused of breaching doctor-patient confidentiality for helping Home Office target foreigners . Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/home-office-nhs-data-sharing-patients-human-rights-court-challenge-a8045011.html
Fassbender, M. (2018). Ketamine trial suspended following concerns around informed consent . Retrieved from https://www.outsourcing-pharma.com/Article/2018/10/30/Ketamine-trial-suspended-following-concerns-around-informed-consent
Gokavi, M. (2014). Lawsuit involving Dayton woman who died in 2010 reaches trial . Retrieved from https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/crime--law/sponge-left-woman-body-leads-medical-malpractice-suit/B0FwFGsTgLWt1q04JTiFVL/
Grady, C. (2015). Enduring and emerging challenges of informed consent. New England Journal of Medicine , 372 (9), 855-862.
Stamm, J. A., Korzick, K. A., Beech, K., & Wood, K. E. (2016). Medical malpractice: reform for today's patients and clinicians. The American journal of medicine , 129 (1), 20-25.
Wong, S. T., Lavoie, J. G., Browne, A. J., MacLeod, M. L., & Chongo, M. (2015). Patient confidentiality within the context of group medical visits: is there cause for concern?. Health Expectations , 18 (5), 727-739.
