Ethics and Legal Standards 2 Flashcards
Correctly identify patients Improve staff communication Use medicine safely Prevent infections Prevent surgical mistakes Identify patients at risk for suicide
National Patient Safety Goals while providing care.
Identify patients using 2 or more means
-Ensure blood transfusion patients get correct blood.
To correctly identify patients
[national patient safety goals]
Transmit test results in a timely manner to the appropriate staff member.
Improve staff communication
[national patient safety goals]
Label all medicines
Use extra caution with blood thinners
Take care when recording and communicating patient medicine information.
Use medicine safely
[National patient safety goals]
- Employ existing CDC and WHO hand hygiene guidelines.
- Employ existing protocols on difficult to treat infections.
- Employ existing protocols on postsurgical infections.
- Employ existing protocols on urinary tract infections from catherization.
Prevent Infections
[National patient safety goals]
- Ensure that the correct surgery is performed on the correct patient.
- Mark the intended surgical site on the patient.
- To prevent a mistake, pause briefly before surgery.
Prevent surgical mistakes.
[National patient safety goals]
- Assess patient risk for suicide.
- Provide safety of patient.
- Provide suicide prevention information to client and family upon discharge.
Identify patients at risk for suicide (applicable in psych hospitals and in general hospitals when caring for patients with psych disorders)
[National patient safety goals]
The overall goal of the client advocate is to protect client’s rights. The nurse serves as both a teacher and an advocate by informing clients about their rights, by providing them with information they need to make informed decisions.
- The nurse advocate needs to remain objective if the clients decision goes against what the physician is recommending and their own belief/value system. Do not convey approval or disapproval of the client of their choice.
- Advocacy requires accepting and respecting the client’s right to decide, even if the nurse believes the decision is wrong.
Nurse’s role as a patient/family advocate
- Be assertive.
- Recognize that the rights and values of clients and families must take precedence when they conflict with those of healthcare providers.
- Be aware that conflicts may arise over issues that require consultation, confrontation, or negotiation between the nurse and administrative personnel or between the nurse and a primary care provider.
- Work with the community agencies and lay practitioners.
- Understand that advocacy may require political action-communicating a client’s healthcare needs to government and other officials who have the authority to do something about those needs.
The nurse as an effective advocate
is a system of moral principles or standards governing behaviors and relationships that is based on professional nursing beliefs and values.
- Standards of right and wrong.
- Morality
- Laws reflect the moral values of a society, and the offer guidance in determining what is moral. [An action can be legal but not moral]
Ethics
Standards of right & wrong
Morality; private, personal standards of right and wrong in conduct, character, and attitude.
-Laws reflect the moral values of a society, and the offer guidance in determining what is moral.
Ethical standards in the provision of care
the right to self-determination. Respect of the clients rights to make decisions on their own.
Autonomy
the application of ethics to issues of human life or health. Caring for clients with HIV/AIDS, genetic testing, abortion, organ transplants, or end-of-life decisions.
Bioethics
The act of doing good.
Beneficence
The duty to do no harm
Nonmaleficence
Fairness, due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law
Justice
telling the truth
Veracity
Autonomy Bioethics Beneficence Nonmaleficence Justice Veracity Ethics Morality
Principles of ethical decision making terms to know:
a system of moral principles or standards governing behaviors and relationships that is based on professional nursing beliefs and values.
Ethics
Private, personal standards of right and wrong in conduct, character and attitude.
Morality
Personal beliefs about the truth and the worth of thoughts, objects, or behaviors.
Values
An interpretation or conclusion that one accepts as true.
Beliefs
Altruism Human Dignity Integrity Social Justice Autonomy
Nurses should also follow the American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics and the International Council Nurses (ICN) Code of Ethics*
Values that are essential for the professional nurse
a concern for the welfare and well being of others.
Altruism
refers to the inherent worth and uniqueness of individuals and populations.
Human Dignity
Acting in accordance with an appropriate code of ethics and accepted standards of practice.
Integrity
refers to the upholding of justice, or what is fair, on a social scale.
Social Justice
encompass the rights, responsibilities, and scope of nursing practice as defined by state nurse practice acts and as legislated through criminal and civil laws.
-All clients have a privilege, demand or claim by virtue of law or right to expect competent nursing services.
Legal Standards
deals with the rights and duties of private individuals or citizens and is most often enforced through the awarding damages or compensation.
Civil Law
is a civil wrong committed against an individual or an individual’s property.
**The tort law defines and addresses both unintentional and intentional actions or omissions that result in harm to another person or persons or harm to another person’s personal property.
Civil Law’s Tort
Negligence
Malpractice
Unintentional Torts
when a negligent act occurs without intent to injure.
Negligence
[unintentional tort]
are acts and omissions committed by a professional in the course of performing their professional duties.
malpractice
[unintentional tort]
assault
battery
false imprisonment
invasion of privacy
Intentional torts
the threat of harm without touching the person.
Assault
the act of physically harming a person.
Battery
the unjustifiable detention of a person without legal warrant to confine the person.
False Imprisonment
invading the persons right to privacy without proper authorization
Invasion of privacy
A specialty that integrates nursing science, computer science, and information science to manage and communicate data, information, knowledge and wisdom in nursing practice. Nursing Informatics supports consumers, patients, and other providers in their decision-making in all roles and settings. This support is accomplished through the use of information structures, information processes, and information technology.
Nursing Informatics
Definition
Cardiac monitors, mechanical ventilators, and many blood pressure cuffs use computer technology, and most telephone systems in addition to electronic health records. Telehealth, smartphones, tablets, and COWS (computer on wheels) are also included in the informatics of health care.
Nursing Informatics
- Give broader view of the client’s health
- Interdisciplinary access; allowing a more comprehensive management of their health and is designed to improve the quality of care.
- Up to the minute updating
- The GOAL of the EHR is that it can move with the client, whether to another provider, a different hospital or out of state.
Electronic Health Records (EHR)
- Similar to the electronic chart used in a clinician’s office.
- FOCUS is on diagnosis and treatment
- Tracks VS’s and routine test results
- Routine preventative health maintenance
- Disadvantages are that they stay within a clinical setting and are not meant to travel beyond it.
- May need a paper printout of their record if there is a need to see a specialist.
Electronic Medical Records (EMR)
a legal document that allows individuals to choose their preferred treatment plan while they are mentally able to ensure that their wishes will be carried out, even when they are unable to make decisions themselves.
**Advance Directives can be living wills, healthcare proxy or durable power of attorney. they must be in writing, signed by the client, witnessed and notarized.
Advanced Directives
Is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of the individual patient.
Evidence-based practice
Current strong evidence
Client perspectives
Clinical expertise
3 components that frame-work for EBP that the nurse’s use to provide optimized individual clinical care to clients.
