In the same way as other healthcare professionals, nurses are required to do their work following a convoluted web of federal and state legislation. As a result of the rapid advancements that have been made in medical procedures and technologies, nurses and other professionals working in the healthcare industry frequently find themselves in situations where they must make decisions even though legislators and the court have not yet established laws governing new procedures and practices.
As a consequence, nurses need to make decisions with extreme prudence to lessen the likelihood that they may be held legally liable for their actions. In addition, nurses are obligated to consider the ethical repercussions of their choices to guarantee that the care they provide is in the best interest of their patients and does not result in any damage.
At first blush, it may seem that reaching these conclusions should not be too difficult; nevertheless, many circumstances are not cut and dried, and there are instances when something that appears to be legal is not ethical, and vice versa. As a result, this article discusses legal and ethical issues in the nursing profession. By going through the information below, we guarantee you that you will be adequately equipped to handle any issue relating to ethical and legal issues in nursing.
Ethical Issues in Nursing
Before embarking on anything, you must ask yourself what ethical issues in nursing are?
To answer the above question, you must note that patients, their families, and healthcare professionals must make moral and legal choices daily. These challenging problems may include medical treatments or procedures, hospital administration, or other issues that crop up in the healthcare business.
Ethical dilemmas in the medical field can call for a prompt solution, such as deciding on a patient’s care for them when they are unable to do so, or they can involve a prolonged, carefully considered decision, such as the debate over the right to abortion or assisted suicide.
Either way, resolving these dilemmas can be a challenge. When it comes to ethical dilemmas in healthcare, the acts that are performed make it abundantly evident what is right and wrong. Furthermore, many of the actions that are made today have the potential to have long-lasting repercussions on healthcare in the future.
With the above understanding, you might want to ask yourself some current Ethical Issues in Nursing. Informed consent, patient privacy, and confidentiality protection are some of the current ethical issues in nursing.
1. Informed consent
The issue of informed consent might at times present nurses with an ethical challenge. Worrying that patients and their families have not been told about the therapies performed on a patient or that they do not comprehend the treatments may create a difficult situation. There is a cause for worry since some patients do not feel at ease asking questions or providing permission before fully comprehending the ramifications of the therapy they are receiving.
Patients have a greater chance of complying with a treatment plan and having positive results if they sense that they are being supported and have faith in their physicians and nurses. Nurses must ensure that patients completely comprehend all aspects of their treatment plans to avoid potentially problematic ethical situations. The specifics include awareness of the potential dangers and the process flow for how an operation will be performed or how certain drugs and therapies will influence them. This may put the patients’ health at risk and increase hospital expenses if they do not. Therefore, healthcare staff should make an extra effort to ensure that their patients comprehend the treatment plan before safely obtaining their informed consent.
2. Protection of patient privacy and confidentiality
Privacy and confidentiality concerns of patients are among the most critical ethical challenges nurses encounter. If this is not carried out properly, there may be legal repercussions, and there may also be serious implications for those working in the medical field. According to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPA), which safeguards patients’ medical information, there are specific restrictions and procedures for preserving patients’ privacy.
Even while nurses are required to safeguard their patients’ rights and work in their patients’ best interests, they are also bound to respect patients’ freedom to make their own medical decisions. Patient autonomy, which refers to patients’ freedom to autonomously make choices about their treatment based on personal or cultural belief systems, is a fundamental tenet of nursing that all healthcare practitioners must follow. Patients with autonomy over their care have the right to decline any drugs, treatments, or procedures offered to them. Even though this may go against the recommendations nurses and physicians give, nurses will still be expected to follow this decision and carry out their duties.
Common Ethical Issues in Nursing
In the list below are some ethical issues experienced in nursing;
List Of Ethical Issues in Nursing
- Patient Protections
- Fairness of resource allocation
- Patient confidentiality
- Patient safety
- Entanglement of Interests
- Privatization ethics
- Informed Consent
- Managing the other sex
- Beginning and ending of life
- Ethics for Healthcare Teams.
Legal And Ethical Issues in Nursing
In the United States, the American Nurses Association is responsible for compiling and publishing the generally recognized principles for ethical nursing practice. The ANA Code of Ethics is a dynamic document that adapts to reflect the profession’s changing landscape. The American Nurses Association (ANA) also provides distinct ethics guidelines for various specializations and contentious areas, such as the ethics involved in making decisions about the end of a patient’s life.
Again, when looking at Legal & Ethical Issues in Nursing, it is important to understand that nurses may be punished or have their licenses revoked if they violate the Nurse Practice Act in the state where they are licensed to practice. When providing patient care, nurses may potentially be held legally accountable for carelessness, malpractice, or violation of patient confidentiality.
Also, when discussing Legal & Ethical Issues in Nursing, it is important to realize that even if there are new regulations or different ways of doing things in the medical field, the underlying ethical values that underpin the nursing profession will not alter. The fundamental aspects of nursing care services as the cornerstone around which nursing ethics are built. The following are some of the fundamental components of nursing care that are relevant to the nursing profession:
1. Keenness
Attention to Detail Nurses has an ethical responsibility to pay attention not just to the requirements of their patients but also to their coworkers, employers, and the community at large.
2. Accountability
The majority of nurses, daily, are responsible for making choices that directly influence the lives of the patients they care for. As a result, they have the responsibility to think about all the potential outcomes of their actions in terms of how they may affect the health and wellbeing of their patient.
3. Competence
Competence refers to the high level of knowledge and a wide variety of difficult abilities necessary to perform nursing. Because medical science is always advancing in some way, it is the responsibility of nurses to remain current on the most recent findings in their field and the most effective methods for doing their jobs.
4. Patient Response
The nurses in a multidisciplinary treatment team are often the medical experts with the most frequent contact with the patient. This allows them to be more responsive to the patient’s needs. The ethical obligation of monitoring a patient’s reactions to treatment and intervention and communicating that information to other healthcare professionals who are part of the treatment team falls on registered nurses. In addition, nurses are responsible for addressing any issues that patients raise about their care.
Examples Of Legal and Ethical Issues in Nursing
The following are some examples of legal and ethical issues;
Malpractice and Incompetence
What constitutes negligent behavior is “conduct lacking in appropriate caution, carelessness, and a divergence from the norm of conduct that a reasonable person would apply in a given set of circumstances.”
It is more precise to say that the caregiver’s professional standing and the level of care they provided were both factors in the malpractice case.
To demonstrate carelessness or malpractice in a court of law, the following components must be proven:
- Responsibility to the patient
- Disrespect for the patient’s rights
- Foreseeability
- Injury
The Nurse Practice Act, the American Nurses Association, and their company’s rules, procedures, and protocols are all important resources for nurses and nursing students who want to avoid being accused of malpractice or carelessness. The following are examples of nurses’ negligence:
- Failure to Assess Nurses are responsible for evaluating their patients for any possible nursing issues and diagnoses, not simply those directly impacted by the underlying medical condition. For instance, the risk of falling for each patient should be evaluated, and relevant preventative measures should be adopted.
- Inadequate monitoring: Certain situations, such as the danger of falling, the risk of suicide, disorientation, and self-injury, necessitate the nurse to observe the patient on a more regular basis.
- Failure to Communicate:
- Insufficient supporting documentation: In a legal proceeding, the general rule is that if an evaluation or action is not recorded, it is assumed that it was not completed. In addition to the particular kind of patient documentation known as a nursing care plan, nurses must record all evaluations and interventions.
- Failure to notify the provider Changes in patient condition should be quickly notified to the health care practitioner based on patient status. However, this does not always happen. The date, the time, the person who was alerted, and the follow-up steps that the nurse performed should all be documented as part of the provider notification.
- Failure to Follow Protocols: Each agency and state has guidelines for how particular actions or concerns should be reported. For instance, if a nurse suspects a patient, child, or older adult is being abused based on information acquired during an evaluation, she must make a complaint.
Confidentiality of Patients
Additionally, patient confidentiality is a significant legal matter for nursing professionals and students. Patient confidentiality is the right of an individual to have their personal, identifiable medical information (PHI) kept private. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal law that protects this right (HIPAA). HIPAA was passed in 1996 in response to the increasing use of electronic medical records and third-party insurance payers, which necessitated new regulations to safeguard patient privacy and data security. The Privacy and Security Rule are the two key portions of HIPAA legislation. Use and disclosure of personal health information are covered under the Privacy Rule. Electronically protected health information must be safeguarded following the Security Rule, which establishes national standards for securing such data’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability. In addition to medical data, HIPAA requirements include any other information about a patient that could be disclosed to a third party. All patient information should be shared only with the health care team members directly involved in delivering the patient’s care.
Social Media Guidelines
When it comes to publishing on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, as well as other platforms, nursing students, registered nurses, and other members of the health care team need to exercise utmost caution. Never post information on patients, patient safety, or health care agencies on social media. Members of the health care team who contravene this guideline risk losing their jobs and may be subject to legal action. Students who violate this guideline risk reprimanding or being ejected from their nursing course. Be aware that any information you submit, even if you believe you are doing so in a private group, has the potential to be made public.
The American Nurses Association (ANA) has developed a set of guidelines for nurses to follow while utilizing social media, which are as follows:
- The transmission or placement of personally identifiable patient information anywhere online is strictly prohibited for nurses.
- The boundaries between patients and nurses must be maintained professionally and follow ethical standards.
- Registered nurses must know that patients, coworkers, organizations, and even employers may access their online posts.
- Online, registered nurses should use privacy settings wherever possible and try to keep their personal and professional lives distinct.
- Nurses must notify the proper authorities of any information that may compromise the patient’s privacy, rights, or welfare.
- Nurses need to have a voice in corporate rules regulating online behavior.
- In addition to these guiding principles, the American Nurses Association (ANA) has offered the following advice to registered nurses and nursing students who use social media:
- It is important to remember that the expectations of professionalism online are the same as those in any other setting.
- Do not distribute or publish any information or photographs obtained via the nurse-patient connection. This includes both text and images.
- When using electronic media, keep your professional boundaries in check. This distinction becomes blurry when there’s online engagement with patients.
- Even if the patients, employers, or colleagues in question cannot be recognized, you should avoid derogatory comments about them.
- Patients should not be the subject of any photographs or movies taken on personal devices, including mobile phones.
- Notify appropriate parties immediately if there has been a violation of confidentiality or privacy.
Conclusion
The greatest way to deal with ethical dilemmas is to surround yourself with experienced, long-term nurses who can assist you get through them. Working with overseas nurses, such as those from Avant Healthcare Professionals, may assist hospital personnel in better comprehending the spectrum of emotions patients display while in the care of Avant Healthcare Professionals. When patients are apprehensive because of their cultural origins, they might be of great assistance since their experiences may be comparable.
In addition, having a varied staff of nurses creates an atmosphere conducive to ethical discussions inside the wards. Patients will benefit from these open discussions because they feel more accepted and acknowledged by their healthcare personnel. Based on the experiences of their foreign colleagues, nurses will develop innovative approaches to handle ethical dilemmas.
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