How Does Patient Safety Affect Nursing Ethics?

I chose to analyze provision three contained in the American Association Code of Ethics. Provision three explores a nurses daily duty as it relates to patient rights as well as safety and patient privacy. In addition to other healthcare related responsibilities a nurse is effectively, a valuable patient advocate who must work to ensure that patients are treated fairly and competently, not only from the nursing staff, but all caregivers. (American Nurses Association). If a situation concerning incompetent care from other healthcare providers should arise, the nurse must assess issue on behalf of the patient and initiate action to have the issue corrected.

Nurses have a critical role in administering medications to the patients by following the six rights of drug administration. These six rights are: Right medication, Right route, Right time, Right patient, Right dosage, and Right documentation. If any of these one rights is not used properly, it can cause medication error. Causes of medication errors are

How does Ethical Training Help Nurses handle Difficult Ethical Dilemmas While Providing Quality, Patient-Focused Care in Nursing?

Going back to 2007, there were nearly 73,000 medication errors reported to the National Patient Safety Agency. 73,000 errors is far too many regardless whether there was harm done to the patient or not (Nute, 2014). According to a study done in 2009, the majority of the errors came from unclear or wrong dosage, wrong medication, delayed or omitted medication, wrong route, and giving medication to the wrong patient, with unclear or wrong dosage being the number one cause. One of the things that is being implemented now is the use of the five rights. A nurse or healthcare provider is required to administer the right patient the right medication at the right time using the right route and the right dose. This appeared to be the perfect solution to the problem until further studies were performed. The five rights provided some reduction in the number of medication errors but it did not solve the many steps that are to be taken before administering the medication to the patient. One of the most important tasks that needs to be met is knowing the medication before it is

For the purpose of this assignment, ethics in relation to nursing will be discussed. "Ethics; A code of principles governing correct behaviour, which in the nursing profession includes behaviour towards patients and their families, visitorsand colleagues" (Oxford Dictionary of Nursing 2004).

The process of the nursing staff decided that it would be best to use restraints to prevent Mr. J from falling, in this situation with Mr. J developing redness to the lower spine, the UAP who noticed the redness should have alerted the Nurse who then implements a plan of action for skin breakdown, such as, a turning schedule, skin creams, skin protectants, and out of bed for meals, this would have prevented the outcome of a pressure injury. An UAP cannot function out of their scope of practice, by assessment of the client’s skin. The structure of the hospital should ensure client safety, the appropriate skill of the nurse and implement a plan that provides additional staff for turning clients that are unable to turn themselves. Through quality and client safety, hospitals should track clients that are admitted for falls, post- op, elderly, high risk for falls, history of falls, and high risk for pressure injuries. With the use of restraints clients are often confused in certain environments, nurses need to utilize least restrict measures to keep clients safe from falls, by placing them closer to the nurse’s station, hourly rounding, make sure call light is always close, and their needs are met.

Every professional nurse makes a commitment to society to follow an ethical-based approach that provides key principles to follow such as autonomy, veracity, beneficence, justice, confidentiality, and fidelity. Nurses must demonstrate a manner that’s truthful, respects the rights and privacy of patients, does not cause any harm, and treats others equally. Although this may sound simple, nurses may face ethical conflicts with the unsafe practice of healthcare colleagues.

Patient Safety Ethics has always been on the foreground of various studies, research, and debates. It is one of the key proponents in providing competent and suitable healthcare services to the clients. It is a subject that has played a major role in defining the scope of the healthcare system and its sub branches. While different forms of patient safety ethics exists globally, the central theme has always been to establish a recovery-inducing atmosphere in the clinical area. Up to this date, various studies and researches are still underway with improving and determining various factors that can mitigate ethical issues surrounding the

Being a nurse and as a duty of care as a medically indorsed enrolled nurse, going through the 5 rights of drug administration before giving medications is crucial and productive in minimising the risks of giving the wrong patient wrong medications.

One study had investigated reasons for the occurrence of medication errors, which included distractions, failure to identify the correct patient, similar names of medications and miscalculated doses (Mayo & Duncan, 2004). These factors are preventable measures that registered nurses have absolute control of. By following the fundamental framework of the “five rights”, it can prevent an error to occur and ultimately prevent a patient from harm. This framework is beneficial while educating nursing students but it is also important that novice nurses and experienced nurses continue to follow the “five rights” because it sets the fundamental guideline of what should be identified at each process.

Ethics is defined as shared belief and value system of any moral group such as professional, social or community according to Tompson et al (2006). This means that the nurse must make sure everything she is doing is ethically justified in order to care for the Sam properly. This also implies that all healthcare professionals need to make sure that everything they are doing is ethically right, this is because they are part of professional group and are looking after patients who vulnerable and should know the difference between what’s right and what’s wrong. According to Leathard and Mclearn (2007) the nurse and other healthcare staff should always make sure they are following their codes of conduct. This is for the reason that if they do not

Ethics talks about how right or wrong a human behaviour is. Ethical codes are a set of standards set up to be followed by a group of individuals to guide them professionally. Nursing as a profession has these set of rules and standards. there are mainly two types namely descriptive ethics which distinguishes what is good, right, bad and wrong and the other one is normative ethics which is how to act right, well, wrong or bad. Ethical codes have been in the system for a while now and although they are being practiced, there are some barriers to the adherence to these codes. Some of the stumbling blocks are the unavailability of resources, minimal support from higher managerial offices, conflict of value with other professionals in the hospital

Health care providers, including nurses, face difficulties in their every day work experiences. These problems include but are not limited to: ethical decision-making, patient safety concerns, heavy workloads, time constrictions, intense skill requirements, role uncertainty, and caring for patients and their families who are suffering or dying. No matter what population nurses are working with, they are at risk for facing some or all of these difficulties. Nurses who work with the geriatric population are not excluded from these difficulties and perhaps are at the highest risk for developing stress overload and/or burnout. If nothing is done to prevent burnout in the geriatric setting, or reverse burnout that has already occurred in many nurses, hours worked will continue to be reduced and nurses may begin to change professions or retire early. In addition to absenteeism, there is also a risk of worsening performance and caring malpractice, as well. Not only could their careers be affected, but the complexity of the symptoms of burnout can have serious consequences on the nurses health, including anxiety, depression, headaches, and more (Sanchez, Mahmoudi, Moronne, Camonin, & Novella, 2015). Those in leadership positions must help eliminate nurse burnout by motivating their employees and implementing strategies to reduce stress overload.

Introduction: Current Problem with Handing out Medications There are skills that nurses must know while working in the health care field. We have various devices that we use to recall all of the necessary information to be able to help a patient improve their health. While remembering countless of skills for the patient, as nurses we must document and give the right medications. Recently, I have noticed that some patients are receiving the wrong medications.

An eight month old girl arrives at an emergency room in which it was discovered that the child had bilateral fractures on her femur. The hospital determined that there was no child abuse present by having a conversation with the mother. They did not base this decision on anything other than the conversation with the mother. The mother informed them that the child complained about the condition after daycare and from this the hospital staff concluded that the child was not being abused. The problem within this case is that the hospital staff did not go to great lengths to verify the mother's story. If the mother would have been the source of the injures by abusing her child then the hospital could be held liable. Relying solely on the mother's statement could possible put both the hospital and the child at risk.