Ethical and Policy Issues Affecting the Coordination of Care in Nursing Homes.

Nursing homes are a major part of caregiving organizations in the community. In their structure a lot of things need to be considered for effective and efficient care coordination. However, there are ethical and policy issues that affect this kind of coordination and continuum in nursing homes. They include: doctor-patient confidentiality, malpractice and negligence and physician assisted suicide. Others include covert medication, end of life issues and use of restraints as indicated by Baughman, Dave and Dills (2019). 

1.      Doctor Patient Confidentiality. 

This has been done in cases such as withholding information about a patient’s condition could be unethical because it could harm the patient or someone else. The opposite can be harmful too.  

Violating a patient’s confidentiality can have legal and ethical consequences for healthcare providers as indicated by  the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Also it sets forth who can see the confidential information and who cannot 

2.                  Malpractice and Negligence. 

The high-risk nature of the healthcare atmosphere can increase the likelihood of malpractice. Conditions can come up in unusual ways that wouldn’t make sense unless a doctor was looking for the symptoms (Bollig et al., 2015). Lines can be blurred when doctors disagree about procedures or necessary tests to provide accurate treatment. Administrators, as well as physicians and nurses must cover the essential responsibilities of patient care to avoid litigation. 

3.                  Physician Assisted suicide. 

Physician-assisted suicide is the act of intentionally killing oneself with the aid of someone who has the knowledge to do s. Meaning the only person fully qualified to participate in the process is a physician. In states where PAS is allowed, a patient who qualifies must be terminally ill, can take the assisted drug themselves and is mentally capacitated to understand what they’re doing.  

4.                  Covert Medication. 

This is the mixture of medication without informing the resident. Home residents do receive covert medication, often without documentation and discussion with relevant parties. This results in being unethical for the required procedure is not followed (Current Ethical Issues in Healthcare, n.d.). Thus, covert medication deals involve provision of medication without medication.  

5.                  End of life issues. 

According to Wright (2015), when patients get close to death, the family or relatives are not present, and appear later on after death. It forms a problem and questions arise even questioning the competency of the care given before death. As noted by Arguelles and Sabharwal (2018; Current Ethical Issues in Healthcare, n.d.).) end of life issues should be treated with caution.

References

1. HCH Clinicians’ Network (2018). Patient-Centered Care: Case Studies on End of Life. Vol. 22(1). Retrieved from https://nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/hh-end-of-life-care-final-2.pdf
2. Wright, S. (2015, Dec. 16). Delivering patient-centred palliative care services at end-of-life.
3. The eight principles of patient-centered care · Oneview. (2019, June 4). Oneview. https://www.oneviewhealthcare.com/the-eight-principles-of-patient-centered-care/
4. Current Ethical Issues in Healthcare (n.d.). Retrieved from