Impact of the code of ethics for nurses on coordination and continuum of care

The code of ethics should act as a guide for nursing practice and should be a reminder to the nurses of their commitment to society and their need for evidence-based practice. The code of ethics that usually regulates nurses makes it possible for them to give their patients the best care possible. The principle of ethics allows nurses to communicate and interact with their fellow interdisciplinary team members. This means that the code of ethics enables nurses to know the standards of behavior to uphold in a multidisciplinary team.

The code of ethics also enables them to uphold high levels of professionalism. During care coordination, it is essential to maintain patients’ confidentiality and security. Care coordination involves the patients, their families, and other healthcare practitioners. Guided by the code of ethics, nurses can uphold confidentiality and patient security standards. Bijani et al. (2017) claim that the code of ethics can make it possible for nurses to make ethical decisions that will not cause harm to the patients. Furthermore, it enables nurses to uphold proper conduct with patients, allowing them to make informed care decisions.

The first provision of the code of ethics focuses on practicing with compassion and recognition of the qualities, worth, and dignity of every patient. The principle of ethics enables nurses to focus on the client or patient-centered care, respecting their needs and advocating for better care of patients while maintaining the necessary boundaries. Lastly, the code of ethics allows nurses to accept accountability and responsibility. This is particularly important during the coordination of care, which involves a multidisciplinary team and could also involve delegation of duties. (Eastern Michigan University, 2018). The code of ethics is also essential in enabling nurses to uphold their role as advocates to push for policies that influence better health outcomes. This facilitates reduced health disparities caused by low education, income, and residential segregation.

Ethical And Policy Issues Affecting the Coordination of Care for Nursing Homes

Various ethical and policy issues affect the coordination of care in nursing homes. Some everyday ethical challenges include using restraints, autonomy, and informed consent. In contrast, other ethical issues involving decision-making and end-of-life care, such as questions regarding hospitalization, withdrawal, or withholding of life-sustaining treatment, among other things, are common. Care coordination can be complex without proper policies and guidelines outlining issues to do with life-sustaining treatment.

Care coordination can also be affected by poor communication and cooperation between the healthcare workers and the family’s next of kin; these could affect the quality of care offered to nursing homes. Lastly, coercion can cause significant damage to care coordination, given that nursing homes usually have no proper codes of ethics and behavior to guide nurses in their care of older adults. Furthermore, given that informed consent is essential in protecting the patient’s autonomy, dignity, and privacy, in nursing homes, there are cases where patients are unable to make such consent due to physical cog, native, or mental incapability. This could involve issues about end-of-life care and withdrawal of treatment, resulting in poor care coordination for the patients.

Research by Bollig et al. (2015) shows that the significant ethical challenges in the provision of end-of-life care in nursing homes involve a lack of resources as well as breaches of the autonomy of the patient. Even though there are provisions in the ACA about senior care, ethical issues about lack of resources, end-of-life care, and patient independence remain significant. Furthermore, covert medication is considered one of the major ethical dilemmas for nurses. Most home residents tend to receive covert medication without discussion and documentation with relevant parties, and this causes major ethical and policy issues in nursing home care coordination.

Conclusion

To summarize our study today, we have seen that governmental policies are essential for facilitating access to care and improving the general quality of patient care. This is mainly observed in the provisions of the ACA that enhance healthcare accessibility and focus on quality improvement. We have also studied that the significant ethical dilemma for the ACA policy provisions involves improving quality while lowering healthcare costs without necessarily raising the cost of living, particularly for the economically disadvantaged. A discussion on the code of ethics has also been made, outlining that this code of ethics provides the general provisions and guidelines to enable nurses to provide quality care for patients. Lastly, regarding