NHS FPX 4000 Assessment 3 Applying Ethical Principles

Applying Ethical Principles

In any capacity within a healthcare organization or business, working in the field is seen as both extraordinarily gratifying and occasionally challenging. However, every choice, action, and use of resources can result in conflict. This begs whether each choice or decision is ethically proper, a crucial consideration for healthcare professionals navigating dangerous situations. This article discusses the ethical case study provided in the “Ethical Case Studies media piece” of assessment 1.

Summary of the Case Study

    The ethical case study chosen is Incident 2 Repeat Admissions to the Emergency Department (ED) – A Question Concerning Resource Use. The case study focuses on emergency department resource utilization and how overuse impacts the hospital’s bottom line. The case study begins by describing how Matt Losinski completed reading an article on the over usage of emergency services in Central Texas hospitals. County General Hospital combines urban and suburban services, and Matt serves as the facility’s Chief Executive Officer. County General Hospital has 300 beds and is located in the south-central United States. Before its transfer to a non-profit organization, the county government operated the hospital. However, the hospital was transferred to a non-profit organization due to the expense burden. Matt considered the paper to study the organization’s current situation. The study thoroughly examined hospital readmission rates, their financial implications, and resource use. Matt submitted the document to Mary Scott, the chief financial officer, expecting she would recognize its importance for CGH. Scott visited Matt’s workplace to talk about the piece. Scott noted that she did not consider the situation problematic, given that Medicaid covered 75% of emergency department charges for qualified patients. However, Matt was irritated with Scott for not comprehending the matter. Anisha Patel, the administrative resident, was requested by Matt, who believed that the ED at CGH was inadvertently wasting too many resources to submit information on patients who were repeatedly admitted to the ED. It was found that the article’s conclusions and CGH’s data were nearly identical. Matt observed that the CGH ED readmits patients with mild and nonspecific medical conditions. The results were subsequently submitted to the board of directors, who had differing opinions regarding the preliminary review data.

Nonetheless, the board was adamant about modifying the ED’s resource allocation. The article titled “Recurrent Emergency Department Users: Two Categories with Different Risk Profiles” (Slankamenac et al., 2019) shows that readmissions in an ED cause financial loss. The article also highlights the reasons for readmissions. This article is linked to the case study I discussed, which addresses the rate of hospital readmissions. In another article titled, “Correlation between hospital finances and Quality and safety of patient care,” it has been mentioned that the quality of care is affected in a hospital if the hospital goes through financial issues (Akinleye et al., 2019). 

NHS FPX 4000 Assessment 3 Attempt 4 Applying Ethical Principles

Model of Ethical Decision-Making

Moral awareness, moral discernment, and ethical conduct are the three aspects of ethical decision-making. Matt exhibited moral awareness by recognizing the risk to the hospital posed by readmission rates and how these impacted the facility’s cost expenditures about its resources and bottom line. In addition, he displayed moral judgment by examining the level of resource use at CGH and using the resulting data to bring the issue to the board’s attention so that it might be remedied. Even further, he demonstrated how resource usage would only have long-term effects on the business if nothing were done. Matt also exhibited ethical conduct by being forthright with the board and other staff about the excessive use of resources and fairness and equity. Using research initiatives, he demonstrated how overutilization would impact the future of the business. The Utilitarian and Deontological Ethics approaches can be considered adequate here as they focus on providing happiness to a large group of individuals. These approaches are outcome and duty based, respectively. The ineffective ethical approach would be when the hospital’s CEO wanted to get funds for the hospital, and he was rejected. It shows that the stakeholders were not ethically bound to their duties. 

Contributing Factors to the Ethical Problem

     The recognized ethical concern is justice, which advocates for fair and equitable resource distribution.