Introduction
Health managers must, of course, adhere to human resources legislation. One of the essential elements is a patient rights policy. Patient’s rights are established to protect their interests and prevent potential abuse of their rights. Patient rights belong to human rights, while the concept of human rights is mainly about minimum standards of how people expect to behave with others.
Legal and Ethical Foundations
The concept of ethics belongs to the usual standards of how people should treat others (Olejarczyk & Young, 2022). Hence, law and ethics are usually considered the flip sides of the same coin. Each patient’s right is based on one or more principles from which this right is derived. The policy provides for patients’ rights to informed consent, the right to information, the right to access their medical records, and the right to confidentiality.
Ensuring that patients’ rights are respected is a significant task of health managers. Health managers must be aware of the patient’s rights and their enforcement. Such a goal can be achieved by developing rules and procedures to enforce patients’ rights, providing patients with information about their rights, and establishing processes to make decisions and analyze patients’ complaints. Managers must ensure that patient rights are respected and not violated in any part of them.
Standardization and Equity in Patient Care
Health representatives need to establish clearly defined patient rights, which can standardize care across all areas of healthcare and allow patients to expect the same treatment regardless of status. Patient rights must comply with insurance companies, empowering people to take an active role in improving their health and strengthening people’s relationships with healthcare providers (Olejarczyk & Young, 2022). Like other bills of rights, current bills contain provisions that people can count on specific treatment without considering patients’ socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, gender, or ethnic origin, which is ethically correct in working in a diverse environment.
Specific measures must be provided to ensure patients’ rights in health care. One of the best practices to enforce patient rights is to develop a training program for all staff who deal with patients. Such an approach will help staff understand what patients’ rights should be respected and how they should be treated. In addition, managers should receive conflicting patient complaints and conduct investigations to find practical solutions. Regular audits should also be undertaken to ensure that patient rights are respected and necessary changes made in case of violation.
Role of Accreditation and Ethical Manuals
Another way of implementing rights enforcement is accreditation, which is considered a voluntary regulation tool (Sperling & Pikkel, 2020). This method can be implemented by the independent provider and the interested organization by changing the provisions in the ethical manuals (Sperling & Pikkel, 2020). Although accreditation provides an opportunity to regulate patients’ rights, the accepted sanctions are limited and sometimes difficult to enforce in civil or criminal law.
Conclusion
Protecting patient rights is one of the most critical elements of human resources legislation, and managers must adhere to it to ensure a healthy and safe world for all patients. They should develop rules and procedures, educate patients on their rights, implement staff development initiatives, and address conflicting patient complaints to find solutions. To better protect patient rights, health professionals should be made aware of the rules and procedures for respecting the patient’s rights and, to prevent violations, follow up and analyze them. Health managers should adhere to this principle, develop policies and procedures, prevent potential violations, and take measures to punish them. Only in this way can legal compliance be achieved and possible violations of laws and regulations prevented.
References
Olejarczyk, J. P., & Young, M. (2022). Patient rights and ethics. National Library of Medicine; StatPearls Publishing. Web.
Sperling, D., & Pikkel, R. B. (2020). Promoting patients’ rights through hospital accreditation. Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, 9(1). Web.