Introduction
Background: XYZ Acute-care Hospital Background
XYZ Acute-care Hospital is one of the fastest growing private healthcare institutions, which was founded and established to offer long-term services for acute and chronic diseases such as respiratory problems, cardiac diseases, brain damage and injuries among others. It is an institution respected for its expertise in the provision of primary and tertiary health care services, as well as handling of numerous visits of their own guests and guests of the patients.
Introductory of Ethical Code of Conduct
This document is a code of ethical conduct for XYZ Acute-care Hospital. The XYZ acute-care hospital’s code of ethical behavior is established and aimed at helping the improvement of patients’ outcomes, through showing respect to each and every individual’s rights in the course of service delivery. It is generally designed to aid in the improvement of our behaviors and relationships among all XYZ staffs, as well as between XYZ staffs with their clients and the public at large. It is a file that is of a great importance to the organization, as it contains most of the descriptions of what the organization believe to be the ethical values required during its course of delivering its acute-care services to their clients. This document is further intended to assist not only all members of XYZ Acute- care hospital, but it is also of a crucial importance to those individuals from the entire public domain which help them in conducting themselves in the best way possible to demonstrate ethical manners, which possibly lead to mitigation of the patients’ outcomes. As part of the XYZ expectations, the organization holds that it clients should share fundamental rights. Thus is why the organization takes the necessary actions to provide the customers with the necessary care which should be safeguarded in order to protect their dignity, psychosocial values, as well cultural believes and spiritual values. It is due to acknowledging, understanding and demonstrating the necessary respect to such values, that we always endeavor to act in ethical manner for us to meet and satisfy the needs of patients in critical and acute conditions. This is one of the core and the mist important ideas and the primary goal of our organization which should be well understood by all our members.
Purpose of the research paper
This paper is aimed at designing an ethical code of conduct for those in governance, management, and professional staff of the XYZ Acute-care hospital. The aim of designing this copy is to highlight XYZ Acute-care hospital’s policies regarding the basic standards that will be followed by XYZ staffs as they will execute their today daily professional and non-professional duties on behalf of XYZ organization, and on adherence to its contents, it will lead to advancement of ethical conduct, legal conduct and many positive social and professional values such as honest, for example.
Scope of the research
The contents of this copy apply to all those in governance, management and staff. Simply, this document is for all XYZ Acute-care hospital staffs-members of senior management team, junior staff members, subordinates, workers at internships and students. Its applications are not limited to regions, sectors or state, but it is applicable globally. XYZ Acute-care hospital staff members ought to ensure that all other members coming into their contact adhere to the contents of this copy.
Requirements
Responsibility
Responsibility of all staff
In the course of executing acute-care services and any other action within or on behalf of XYZ Acute-care hospital, all the XYZ Acute-care hospital staff must adhere to the policies and its associated standards of this document. In cases where certain decisions of a specific action are uncovered within the document’s policies and/or its related standards of ethical conduct, members of the staff are advised to seek immediate guidance from reliable source or material including clinical or medical supervisors, Human resources manager, XYZ Acute-care hospital legal and compliance officers. In addition, all staff including senior/ executive members are subject to disciplinary actions to an extent of expulsion and taken to state’s legal systems for further scrutiny of their misconducts, whether resulting from one’s ignorance or it was committed intentionally by someone who is fully informed.
Managerial responsibility
The senior management of School of Nursing Naivas (SNN), and the board of ethics for nursing & medical standards of the state are the bodies endowed with the responsibility of ensuring that all subjects comply with the set policies and their associated ethical standards through their demonstration of support couples with their continuity in soliciting for adherence to the document’s policies by XYZ Acute-care hospital staff members. Senior XYZ Acute-care hospital staff members must ensure that subordinates and supplementary workers have the necessary guidance, information and training on the relevancy of ethical behavior together with legal implications of misconduct in their course of duty executions.
Reporting of issues of illegal and unethical behaviors
It is in the interest and responsibility of XYZ Acute-care hospital to identify any unethical behavior and other illegal misconducts within the organization. It is also a matter of concern for the XYZ Acute-care hospital senior management staff to ensure any detected act of illegal and unethical conduct concern takes its full course/process of investigation following the right and appropriate channels for both medical profession and the state’s legal and justice system. The SNN and the board of ethics for nursing and medical standards will offer protection against vengeance, reprisals and other related form of harms directed to any one who reports, or any person willing to report illegal and ethical misconduct.
Major areas of importance
The XYZ Acute-care hospital’s code of conduct forms an overarching principle of the expected ethical behavior for all XYZ Acute-care hospital staff members as they execute their formal and informal duties on behalf of the organization. However, it is important to state that even though the following is a list highlighting areas of key importance during the execution of duties and tasks concerning acute care services in the organization, it is incomplete considering numerous different environments or situations which might arise at any time of duty and service delivery. The list, therefore, should not be considered complete, authentic and exhaustive of all the expectations of ethical conduct of the organization. There are many other supporting sources and information contained in the universal nursing and medical sources of ethical standards
Patient well-being
Every one must act in a manner that promotes the well-being of a patient. No one is allowed to cause harm or additional suffering to clients; people’s actions must be geared toward facilitation of patient’s welfare and healthy through prevention of and/ removal of harm. With the right information in place, each person must take the best form of action necessary for saving life of a patient, in other words, actions must be beneficial to the patient (9Yeo, 2006).
Limits to choice
Patients have the right to make sound decision concerning their treatment. Patients have no right of making and imposing implementation of unsound decision in their lives. Decisions made by clients/patients that endanger or seem to endanger a patient’s life and safety of other people, must not be allowed. Smoking is not allowed within the organization offering acute care services. All decisions likely to lead to performing or acting in unethical and illegal manner are prohibited as well (Curtin 2003).
Language and communications
Certain sensitive information of the organization’s prospects will not be communicated to the mass media and other public established media which can mislead the public. Undisclosed, unpublished sensitive information on performance or specific policy will remain concealed until it gets appropriate authorization by the endorsed relevant persons and authorities. Staff members of the company will communicate and make all necessary information available to their clients in order to make an informed decision. Members of the staff will not make necessarily communications with third-parties concerning the state and patient’s condition. Any disclose of medical information to a third party will only be made with the consent of patient, and the disclosure of such information will apply only to those individuals whom they have shown interest of helping the facilitation of health recover of the hospital client. In the effort of making certain choices of the client, simple and clear understandable language to the patients must be used. Every effort must be made to encourage communication between parties, and no party should assume the inability to communicate the other party without properly testing of his or her inability to do so. Hard bitter words should never be used. These are counted as ways of threatening and abusing the patient. Any one identified as being abusive must be liable for disciplinary action (Registered Nurses Association of British Columbia, 2008).
Professional conduct & competitiveness
All the company’s activities and tasks are conducted in well identified and established processes or procedures. XYZ Acute-care hospital’s staff take great care in completion of any judgment of a given tasks. We are very careful in taking any contract with our clients or in making any recommendations concerning clients. Through the culture and habit of taking great care is very important in our course of prosperity, as it is by putting into practice such behavior and virtues that we establish our best ground on issues of concern. Commitment to professional methods helps us make best decisions without being influenced by other external factors that might hinder delivering of service of the highest quality, which definitely might have a negative effect on the other side of competiveness.
Confidentiality
The organization is committed to the maintaining of high degree of integrity in its deals and contracts with their clients/patients. It will always maintain the highest level of integrity for both past and present patients in regards to usual commercial confidentiality. The organization’s integrity is also depicted and demonstrated through the protection of individual’s personal identities and information provided during the course of acute care service provision. Similar standards of confidentiality are extended to the entire range of patients, clients, employees and interns.
Documentation & support
Medical and clinical documents necessary for the purpose of either disease evaluation, or assessment of the patient’s health conditions which may lead to medical and nursing intervention are made available to the responsibility parties when requested or necessary. Documentation is made by the responsible parties who are accountable for any mistake arising from any poor quality work. Error and mistakes arising due to ignorance and/or reluctance of responsible person failing to take the necessary appropriate documentation procedures are considered as serious violations of legal and ethical conducts. Such illegal and unethical failures bear disciplinary action as well as legal scrutiny and judgment. Proper documentations together with other supportive materials must be provided on a timely manner to provide the needed information for easy evaluations and subsequent intervention process (Fowler 2009).
Honesty
The organization staff members would always conduct themselves during the course of service delivery in a way that reflects the organization‘s honesty and truthfulness. Every staff member must conduct himself honorably as s/he similarly expects to equally receive the same magnitude of honor from other parties. Honesty must be demonstrated at all organization’s dealings and level of conducting service delivery, within all areas of management inclusive of financial management/payments. The organization takes the opportunity to advise, assist others to gain knowledge, understand and take the most appropriate way of ethical conduct and through this, it advances protection of moral position of the parties involved in the course of our service delivery. Falsehoods and any misleading information given by a staff party is considered as a serious violation of the organization’s code of conduct, and such behaviors are liable for disciplinary action and judgment.
Respect for life
We maintain and uphold the fact that human beings are special and human life must always be considered precious by show of special treatment of respect and protection. Despite of the health status of a person, no one is allowed to demean the life another person physical or through non-physical methods, but everyone is required to show respect for human life through having considerations of quality individual life, and putting the possible values and protections to it. The organization thus ensures that there is preservation of human life by putting reasonable efforts to apply any means to preserve human life without consideration of any other factor in form of material and technological costs.
Maintaining commitments
The organization imposes the spirit of self- regulation of its professionals. Under the delivery of acute-care services, there are many challenges and obstacles encountered both by the service deliverers and the recipients of the services. In order to eliminate such obstacles, the organization adopts the culture of self regulatory means. It is through such strategies that the organization is assured of the provision of safe and valuable ethical care in the acute-care organizations. As part of commitment of the staff members to this code of ethical conduct, the service providers must not act for the purpose of fulfilling their own interests (Monagle & Thomasma, 2003). Acute care service providers must take actions which are mainly directed and supportive to the clients’ best interests, wishes together with upholding the standards for quality practices. Finally, the show of commitment begins with the service providers understanding and fulfilling their obligations such as refraining from the practices of patients’ abandonment, neglect and abuse. Besides, members of staff must show and give knowledgeable care as well as provide the empathy to the recipients of their services.
Accountability of care
The organization’s duties and actions will often comply with all nursing and medical professional laws, the by-laws made under the ministry of health at the county governance, and any other relevant law or regulations that must be adhered to. While dealing with numerous and different individuals from the diverse community, the organization will always avoid setting adverse effects on the rights of mankind and their well-being of social nature in the society (Pence & Cantrall, 2000).
Staffs’ care
Staff’s care is timely and sensitive provisions of service care including first aid to patients with worsening conditions or staff members who might fall short of normal performance due to work stresses or some other cause of stress. Counseling services should be made available to both patients and staff for the purpose of maintaining good relationships of member staff and patients by facilitating effective one-on-one communications while at the same time eliminating environments of stressful conditions. Timely and high sensitivity in the provision of acute care is a major issue and it must be provided for reasons of eradicating/eliminating individual’s state of stressful ignorance together with negligence. Furthermore, timely and sensitivity in the provision of acute care services must address issues and problems, situations of negligence for not taking the most appropriate care, abuse and wrongful use of organization tools and equipments (Comack 2003).
Conflict of interest
Following the nature of service delivery of our organization, services are directly provided to the patient/clients but not a thirty party. We provide our services to the direct consumers after close screening and scrutiny leading to the establishment of the particular health problem of the client. The organization does not work with staff running their own or dealing with competitor organization for reasons of avoiding work overload and stresses among our staff members. XYZ Acute-care hospital expects that all of its staff members will always avoid situations with apparent and potential features of conflict of interest as long as they have a contract with this organization. The XYZ Acute-care hospital staff members must report to distinguished authorities of senior management all situations which appear to have any apparent or real show of conflict of interest. They must also enquire of the appropriate directives and guidance prior to taking any form of action as it is in accordance with organization’s regulations. Endorsement of close friends and relatives to carry out or perform professional duties which they have no or have not adequately attained the qualification requirements, is an area that is considered to be a form of conflict of interest, which must be promptly revealed to the relevant authority as it’s in compliance with the statement made above (Brody, 2008).
Assurance of service quality
Quality services are all that we advocate keeping and maintaining the precious life of humans. Our endeavor to maintain quality of human life has been through constant evaluations of clients’ responses to treatment, organization aim, results, duties and participatory activities together with cost effectiveness associated with the various activities. Comprehensive quality assessments are gained through holding meetings and submission of regular progressive reports to the assigned responsible departments.
Conclusion
The coming up of this and its recognition by all parties addressed within it gives a great hope of prosperity to the management and overall running of this organization. The recognition of the contents of the documents implies that each and every person will follow the rules and policies addressed within it, as it is through such recognitions that will lead to elimination of the prior serious legal and unethical violations that had been commonly committed in the organization due to our diverse cultural backgrounds and lack of common guidelines and directives on ethical matters. The observation of these policies is must by all individuals addressed, and any person violating the policies/ rules will face the full force of the authority for the purpose of appropriate disciplinary.
References
Brody, J. (2008). Virtue, ethics, caring and nursing. Scholarly Inquiry for Nursing Practice: An International Journal, 2(2), 88–93.
Comack, M. (2003). Feeding the dying: Myths & realities. Registered Nurse, 5(3), 20–1.
Curtin, L. (2003). Creating moral space for nurses. Nursing Management, 24(3),18–19.
Fowler, M. (2009). Ethical decision-making in clinical practice. Nursing Clinics of North America, 24(4), 955–65.
Monagle, J. & Thomasma, D. (2003). Medical ethics: Policies, protocols, guidelines and programs. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen.
Pence, T. & Cantrall, J. (2000). Ethics in nursing: An anthology. New York: National League for Nursing.
Registered Nurses Association of British Columbia. (2008). Standards for nursing practice in British Columbia. Vancouver, BC: Author.
Yeo, M. (2006). Concepts and cases in nursing ethics. Peterborough: Broadview Press.