Nursing Ethics and Values

The nursing profession is set up with many guidelines, rules, and regulations. Often, these are set up and guided by different values that should be exhibited in the practice. Many organizations including the Viterbo Nursing Program have values that are to be followed by those who associate themselves with that organization. At Easter Seals many colleges and majors come together to care for disabled kids who are having a weekend away from home. This variety of people that collaborate leads to a vast amount of values to be portrayed over the span of the weekend. Of the values that I saw the most memorable were the values of altruism, autonomy, commitment, dignity, social justice, stewardship, and veracity.

I am writing to ask you to cosponsor the Registered Nurse Safe Staffing Act (S. 1132). This act would require hospitals to utilize the direct care nurses' experience to work in concert with management to establish staffing plans unique to each unit. This approach recognizes that fixed mandated nurse to patient ratios, although easier to understand, do not acknowledge the complexities involved in delivering safe, quality care.

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2015), "care coordination involves deliberately organizing patient care activities and sharing information among all of the participants concerned with a patient's care to achieve safer and more effective care". This multidisciplinary team usually includes nurses, patients, physicians, social workers, physical therapists, pharmacists, etc. Care coordination across the continuum improves communication, quality of care, patient safety and patient satisfaction while reducing admissions and readmissions and medical costs. Another activity, public health nursing involves collaboration and partnerships with communities and special population, with a focus on health promotion and preventative care (Kulbok, Thatcher & Meszaros, 2012). Public health nursing includes home care, clinics, case management, and local and state health departments, etc. Finally, nurses joining committees is another way to strengthen healthcare. For example, a readmission review committee involves nurses from the hospital, case managers, social workers, hospital physicians, skilled nursing facility physicians, etc. who come together to review patient cases and identify why patients were readmitted, what fell through the cracks and then develop workflow/protocols to minimize the chance for future readmissions. Committees like these improve patient care and

Therefore, their role is considered to be clinical. Patient safety is an essential and vital component of quality nursing care. It is also a collaborative effort of all health care workers involved with the patient. The Joint Commission ensures health care organizations and health care providers follow, maintain and provide safe and effective care of the highest quality and value. Some of the NPSGs (2016) outlined include: Proper identification of patients, two patient identifiers are required for example patient’s name and date of birth, to ensure that the right patient is getting the right care. Improving staff communication by getting test results to the right staff on time. NPs promote patient safety in a lot of ways. It is a nurse’s professional responsibility to maintain safety and competency by being a life-long learner, keeping abreast of the changes in health care system through self-education; reading evidenced based articles that provides up-to-date regarding nursing care, keeping up with certifications, ensuring licenses are renewed before they expire, wash hands between patient contact, provide patient education by promptly addressing and detailing concerns that were addressed, coordinating care in a timely manner, providing holistic and comprehensive approaches to evaluation and management of patient problems. Focusing on not only the patient but the families too with the emphasis on the meaning of

As a nurse, we serve a society which is very culturally diverse. We provide care to many individuals whom have their own unique set of ethics, values, morals, and beliefs by which may be very different from our own. Because of our professional role, we must use lifelong learning as a tool to broaden our views, increase our knowledge, and understand the influences which affect it. To make this possible, we have to continually educate ourselves about the nursing laws, professional standards, and code of ethics all of which we are committed to.

We should uphold our personal and professional ethical standards at all times. When we find conflict between our personal beliefs and those of the patient, we should endeavor to find a mentor to guide us through our conflict and find a solution that meets the needs of the patient without compromising our own personal belief system. As nurses, we must vow to take accountability for our own actions. I must remember that my fellow nurses can be great resources. They deserve respect and recognition for their hard work, reliability, and knowledge. Nurses should support and assist fellow nurses, nursing students, and other healthcare providers to provide a positive team environment Together we can collaborate to maximize the patient’s health potential on the illness-wellness continuum. As nurses, we can do our part to improve the image of the nursing profession through daily work ethics as well as involvement in the community, political, and professional nursing organizations. Through these forums, nurses can collectively improve healthcare standards both locally and globally.

The modern nature of telehealth has created a dialogue about ethical issues and its relevance to nursing, specifically advance practice nursing. Preserving the nurse-patient relationship is an ethical issue that remerges. This ethical factor can be especially relevant to nursing practice and patient outcomes. It can be argued that it is not feasible to make discriminate and safe judgment calls remotely, especially ones requiring the advanced practice nurse to physically observe and assess objective parameters first hand (McLean et al., 2013). It may not always be noticeable if harm is being done since the provider is not at the bedside. After all, beneficence, the promise to do no harm, is an ethical principal common among all healthcare disciplines. Telehealth may put at risk the trust that comes with face-to-face encounters and could influence patient outcomes. In contrast, research supports that patient outcomes are not solely determined by the physical presence of the advance practice nurse. Patient outcomes are also influenced by the development of and adherences to guidelines and standards for telehealth, which are valuable in helping insure effective and safe delivery of quality healthcare through telehealth (Krupinski & Bernard, 2014). Implementing these guidelines and standards helps the client build trust in the competence of telehealthcare. Further research shows that telehealth plays a key role as a form of healthcare access

Nurses are responsible for being ethical, competent, safe, and stay consistent with local, state, and federal laws. They must have an understanding of how to apply these principles when providing care to a client, they are not only responsible for understanding but also protecting client’s rights. Clients who are in a mental health setting have legal rights and they are guaranteed the same rights as any other person. These rights include, the right to humane treatment and care, the right to vote, the rights related to granting, forfeiture, or denial of a driver’s license, the right to press legal charges against another person, they have the right to refuse treatment, a right to confidentiality,

Аt firѕt, I could not ѕее аny good pointѕ in thiѕ ѕituаtion itѕеlf; howеvеr, looking bаck I cаn ѕее thаt it did hаvе itѕ poѕitivе ѕidе, in аѕ much аѕ аllowing mе to еxаminе myѕеlf аnd to ѕеаrch for my ѕhort fаllingѕ in rеlаtion to thе incidеnt. I fееl thаt if I wаѕ not а 1ѕt yеаr ѕtudеnt, I would hаvе hаd morе knowlеdgе or communicаtion ѕkillѕ on how to dеаl with аn incidеnt of thiѕ dеѕcription, I аlѕo think thаt bеcаuѕе thе ѕupport workеr wаѕ not а nurѕе, it mаdе it morе difficult for mе to mаkе а dеciѕion on whаt thе corrеct procеdurе ѕhould hаvе bееn.

Another principle that is applicable here is the non-maleficence. It refers to the act of doing no harm to the patient and is central to the nursing ethics (Corvol et al., 2012). Non-maleficence in bioethics supports that the primary purpose of the healthcare workers is to not create further distress or harm (Butts & Rich, 2015). In this case scenario, the act of restraining and holding the Tim caused distress to him. On top of that, the breaking of the needle caused injury to the patient resulting in additional surgery and extended stay at the hospital. This action clearly violated the principle of non-maleficence. Another applicable theory here is Deontology. This theory is based on the duties or actions, rather than the consequences of those actions (Edwards, 2011). The actions of the nursing staff supports the theory of Deontology as they carried out their duty to administer medication; although, the consequences of the actions were detrimental to the patients. Apart from supporting the theory of Deontology, the medical staff were also following the principle of Beneficence. The moral principle of beneficence supports the actions that promote good and nurses are obligated to carry out the actions that would benefit the patient (Berman et al., 2014). Nonetheless, Berman and team warned that such actions can also pose a risk of doing harm, unintentionally.

The RN is on the team for her expertise in assessing the medical needs of the client. Each RN carries a license that she works independently under. The RN has been granted authority by the MD Board of Nursing to make a medical assessment of a patient’s needs. With this authority comes the responsibility to provide the best care for the client. Each nurse on the team has a varied background in nursing and bring different expertise to the team. We value that each nurse brings something different to the team. We learn from one another and this builds a stronger team. Each coach needs to be comfortable with the direction given by any nurse on the team. We have now implemented weekly meeting and work together to ensure we are providing the best service for our clients. The team has to respect each nurses practice. We may arrive at a different approach for resolving a client issue, however, this does not mean one approach is better over another. Everyone on the team needs to feel respected and

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The same history can be understood differently by the different point of views, and investigation of each piece will lead to understanding of the big picture (McDonald & McIntyre, 2014).

8). These values are essential to provide and design exceptional patient care. This also includes endorsing the patients’ health and well-being. Nurses acquire their own personal values; as a result, many can experience ethical conflicts if the patient is indifferent. As a health care professional, nurses may think that they know what is best for the patient, regardless though, nurses as health care professionals are obligated to maintain their commitment to patients and to act in the best interest of the patient and appealing to their wishes. From the early days of professional nursing, nurses have emphasized the ethical nature of their work, which has laid the foundation for the development of the code of ethics for nurses (Numminen, Van der Arend,& Leino-Kilpi, 2009, p. 380). Aiming to ensure the provision of ethically high quality nursing care the codes have had several functions such as defining nurses’ duties, responsibilities and prohibitions related to patients, practice, profession and co-workers (Numminen, et al., 2009, p. 380).The codes have

According to Johnstone (2008) “the examination of all kinds of ethics and bioethical issues from the perspective of nursing theory and practice, which, in turn, rest on the agreed case conception of nursing namely: person, culture, care, health, healing, environment and nursing itself”. Nurses’ professional relationship to patient care and within the health care team brings about ethical issues unique to the nursing profession. To practice nursing