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- QUESTION
Total Points Possible: 100
Requirements:
You are a family nurse practitioner employed in a busy primary care office. The providers in the group include one physician and three nurse practitioners. The back office staff includes eight medical assistants who assist with patient care as well as filing, answering calls from patients, processing laboratory results and taking prescription renewal requests from patients and pharmacies. Stephanie, a medical assistant, has worked in the practice for 10 years and is very proficient at her job. She knows almost every patient in the practice, and has an excellent rapport with all of the providers.
Mrs. Smith was seen today in the office for an annual physical. Her last appointment was a year ago for the same reason. During this visit, Mrs. Smith brought an empty bottle of amoxicillin with her and asked if she could have a refill. You noted the patient's name on the label, and the date on the bottle was 1 week ago. You also noted your name printed on the label as the prescriber. The patient admitted that she called last week concerned about her cough and spoke to Stephanie. You do not recall having discussed this patient with Stephanie nor do the other providers in the practice.
Case Study Questions:
- What are the potential ethical and legal implications for each of the following practice members?
- Medical assistant
- Nurse Practitioner
- Medical Director
- Practice
- What strategies would you implement to prevent further episodes of potentially illegal behavior?
- What leadership qualities would you apply to effect a positive change in the practice? Be thinking about the culture of the practice.
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DISCUSSION CONTENT |
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Category |
Points |
% |
Description |
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Potential ethical & legal implications for healthcare team members |
30 |
30% |
Provides relevant evidence of scholarly inquiry of the potential ethical and legal implications for each of the practice members. Uses valid, relevant, and reliable outside sources to contribute to the threaded discussion. |
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Strategies to prevent further conflict |
30 |
30% |
Provides relevant evidence of scholarly inquiry of strategies to implement to prevent further episodes of potentially illegal behavior. Uses valid, relevant, and reliable outside sources to contribute to the threaded discussion. |
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Leadership qualities to effect positive change |
15 |
15% |
Provides relevant evidence of scholarly inquiry of leadership qualities to apply to effect a positive change in the practice. Uses valid, relevant, and reliable outside sources to contribute to the threaded discussion. |
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75 |
75% |
Total CONTENT Points= 75 pts |
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DISCUSSION FORMAT |
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Category |
Points |
% |
Description |
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Interactive Dialogue |
20 |
20% |
4 Required Elements:
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Grammar, Syntax, Spelling, & Punctuation |
5 |
5% |
Grammar, syntax, spelling, and punctuation are accurate. |
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|
25 |
25% |
Total FORMAT Points= 25 pts |
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DISCUSSION TOTAL=100 points |
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| Subject | Nursing | Pages | 5 | Style | APA |
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Answer
Ethical Legal Compliance
Patient safety is a multidimensional facet founded in ethical and legal imperatives. Therefore, both ethical and legal aspects should be provided with a priority in the field of healthcare. According to Kadivar, Manookian, Asghari, Niknafs, Okazi & Zarvani (2017), the principle of non-maleficence offers a guide to the medical staff members to ensure that patient safety is observed while preventing injury and damage. This is effective towards preventing the increased prevalence rates of harm and death recorded in healthcare. This paper presents a case study analysis focused on revealing an instance of ethical and legal breach in the medical setting and how it can be prevented.
Potential Ethical and Legal Implications
The medical assistant has the responsibility of offering the doctors in the clinic with administrative duties and completing medical procedures. The medical assistants have the responsibility of following the rule of ethics and following several legal guidelines while in practice while following the set guidelines by the state where they are serving. Stephanie is the proficient medical assistant in the case. However, a potential ethical and legal implication can be seen in her practice. For instance, it is evident that Stephanie received a call from a patient to have her prescription filled and further made a call to the pharmacy with the name of a provider who did not approve the prescription. The ethical challenge evident in the case of Stephanie includes that of medical negligence associated with the administration. The potential legal implication of the medical assistants is that the professionals lack the appropriate licensure and pharmacological training needed. Moreover, it is also evident that the medical assistants lack the legal authority needed to evaluate if the medication/prescription refill was appropriate for the patient.
A nurse practitioner should carry out several assessment efforts before prescribing medication as a standard of care. The focus is to prevent adverse reactions and to ensure that the medication is the most appropriate for the patient’s condition. However, in the case, it is evident that no assessment processes took place hence increasing risk for potential medical errors which may also constitute negligence. The potential ethical and legal implication involving the medical director includes the fact that he/she permitted the medical assistants to administer new prescriptions without completing an oversight from the prescriber. In practice, the associated ethical and legal factors can be seen as the staff members fail to follow the required protocols in the administration of medication as guided by their scope of practice hence increasing the potential for errors and legal case development.
Strategies for Preventing the Illegal Behavior
Preventing a potentially illegal behavior is an important consideration to be considered in nursing practice. Therefore, different strategies will be undertaken in the case to prevent cases of potentially illegal behavior such a coming up with a code of ethics to be implemented in the working environment. According to Haddad and Geiger (2020), the code of ethics is effective in reinforcing an ethical and legal behavior by guiding the health care professionals in their daily activities and presenting the goals and values of profession. The primary focus is to ensure that the members of the workforce are guided on how to behave ethically and legally while interacting while maintaining healthy workplace environments (Haddad & Geiger, 2020). Additionally, to prevent the potential ethical and legal concerns in the future, the established code of ethics will be constantly updated and reviewed to include any new cases that were not previously considered.
Effective training is also a requisite strategy that can be considered to prevent the ethical and legal malpractices likely to be experienced in a clinical setting. The training will be majorly founded on the fundamental provisions listed under the American Nurses Association’s Code of Ethics. Evidently, some of the nurses may lack requisite knowledge about the requirements of the code. This makes it easier for them to indulge in instances of malpractice without their knowledge hence constituting the potential ethical and legal concerns. For instance, teaching the nurses and the staff that their primary commitment should be on the patients, individual and family will ensue that they become cautious of their actions while in practice to observe this guide (Haddad & Geiger, 2020).
Leadership Qualities to be implemented
According to Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2015) leaders have a responsibility of establishing change in the working environment and ensuring that the staff members adapt to the new provisions. To ensure that the staff members in the clinical setting adapt to change and avoid engaging in activities which increase the potential for ethical and legal concerns, leadership qualities such as courage, trust, and motivation should be implemented in the area of practice (Porter-O'Grady & Malloch, 2015). Arguably, courage is needed as the leader is likely to interact with staff members not willing to embrace the change, and hence likely to bring about resistance. Trust is required as the staff members should show their beliefs in the guide offered by the leader about the effectiveness of the change process. Motivation is also necessary as the leader should encourage the subordinates about the benefits of following the change requirements to ensure a successful outcome. downsides, hence facilitating an effective engagement process.
References
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Haddad, L.M., & Geiger, R.A (2020). Nursing Ethical Consideration. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526054/ Kadivar, M., Manookian, A., Asghari, F., Niknafs, N., Okazi, A., & Zarvani, A. (2017). Ethical and legal aspects of patient's safety: a clinical case report. Journal of medical ethics and history of medicine, 10, 15. Porter-O'Grady, T., & Malloch, K. (2015). Quantum leadership: Building better partnerships for sustainable health (4th ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones &Bartlett
Appendix
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