Ethics, Quality, Safety, and Legal Issues in Nursing: Week 2 Flashcards
Advocacy
Process whereby a nurse objectively provides patients with the information they need to make decisions and supports the patients in whatever decisions they make.
Autonomy
Ability or tendency to function independently
Beneficence
Doing good or actively promoting doing good; one of the four principles of the ethical theory of deontology
Code of ethics
Formal statement that delineates a profession’s guidelines for ethical behavior. A code of ethics sets standards or expectations for the professional to achieve.
Confidentiality
Act of keeping information private or secret; in health care the nurse shares information about a patient only with other nurses or health care providers who need to know private information about a patient to provide care for him or her; information can only be shared with the patient’s consent.
Fidelity
Agreement to keep a promise.
Justice
Ethical standard of fairness.
Non-maleficence
Fundamental ethical agreement to do no harm. Closely related to the ethical standard of beneficence
Value
Personal belief about the worth of a given idea or behavior
QSEN
The Quality and Safety in the Education of Nurses (QSEN).
Initiative is the commitment of nursing to the competencies outlined in the Institute of Medicine report related to nursing education.
QSEN encompasses six competencies: patient-centered care, teamwork, collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and safety.
Quality Improvement
Monitoring and evaluation of processes and outcomes in health care or any other business to identify opportunities for improvement.
National Patient Safety Goals
7 goals to improve patient safety. Identify patients correctly, improve staff communication, use medicines safely, use alarms safely, prevent infection, identify patient safety risks, prevent mistakes in surgery.
The Joint Commission
National non-profit group that is the driver of quality improvement and patient safety in health care. Often associated with accreditation and setting national patient safety goals.
Fall Prevention Techniques
Call light within reach, fall alert signs/bracelets, hourly rounding, orientation and cognitive assessments, bed low and locked position, fall risk assessments
CAUTI
Catheter associated urinary tract infection: can be prevented with nurse-driven protocols focused on early removal [example of quality improvement]