Study Unit 4 Flashcards
(25 cards)
Standards of Ethics
Includes Code of Ethics and Rules of Ethics
Code of Ethics
A guideline for professional conduct as it relates to patients, healthcare consumers, employers, colleges, and other members of the healthcare team. They are suggestions of ethical conduct and are aspirational.
Rules of Ethics
Enforceable policies created to safeguard the patient’s comfort and safety. If violated, they are punishable and subject to sanctions.
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
7 rights, 1 responsibility
The Right to Information
The Right to Choose
Access to Emergency Services
Being a Full Partner in Health Care Decisions
Care Without Discrimination
The Right to Privacy
The Right to Speedy Complaint Resolution
Taking on New Responsibilities
Informed Consent Laws
Specify the types of information that patients must be given so that they can make an informed decision about having medical care, diagnostic studies, or treatment.
HIPAA
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
Malpractice
The failure to do something that a reasonable person, guided by those considerations which ordinarily regulate human affairs, would do.
Negligence
A breach or failure to fulfill the expected standard of care.
Doctrine of Legal Liability
A technologist is responsible for their own negligent acts, regardless if another medical professional advises them to act in the negligent fashion.
“Respondeat Superior” or “Doctrine of Borrowed Servant”
An employer or “leader” is also held responsible for a technologist’s negligent actions. For example, if the technologist is assisting the radiologist.
Res Ipsa Loquitur
The negligent act “speaks for itself” and that the cause of negligence is obvious.
Patient’s Bill of Rights and Responsibilities
Three goals are to:
1. Strengthen consumer confidence that the health care system is fair and responsive to consumer needs
2. Reaffirm the importance of a strong relationship between patients and their health care providers
3. Reaffirm the critical role consumers play in safeguarding their own health
The Right to Information
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
Patient’s right to receive accurate, easily understood information to assist them in making informed decisions about their health plans, facilities, and professionals.
Right to Choose
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
Patient’s right to a choice of health care providers that is sufficient to assure access to appropriate high-quality health care.
Includes access for women to qualified OB/GYN or patients with serious medical conditions and chornic illness access to specialists.
Access to Emergency Services
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
Patient’s right to access emergency health services when and where the need arises.
Being a Full Partner in Health Care Decisions
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
Patient’s right to fully participate in all decisions related to their health care.
Patients who are unable to fully participate in treatment decisions have the right to be represented by parents, guardians, family members, or other conservators.
Care Without Descrimination
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
Patient’s right to considerate, respectful care from all members of the health care industry at all times and under all circumstances.
Patients must not be descriminated against based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, age, current or anticipated mental health or physical disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, or source of payment.
The Right to Privacy
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
Patient’s right to communicate with health care providers in confidence and to have the confidentiality of their individually-identifiable health care information protected. Patient’s also have the right to review and copy their own medical records and request amendments to their records.
The Right to Speedy Complaint Resolution
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
Patient’s right to a fiar and efficient process for resolving differences with their health plans, health care providers, and the institutions that serve them.
Taking on New Responsibilities
Patient Rights and Responsibilities
Patient’s responsibility to maintain good health
Validity of Patient Consent
Informed Consent Laws
The patient:
1. Must be considered competent to make the decision and the decision must be voluntary.
2. Should not feel intimidated by the health care provider, but rather should feel like an active participant
3. Should be provided description of the procedure in layperson’s terms (rather than technical jargon) and the patient’s understanding should be assessed along the way
Patient’s Right to Refusal of Treatment
Patients have the right to refuse treatment and procedures should be terminated if the patient expresses desire to do so.
However, if the patient is not in a coherent state and capable of issuing consent, a surrogate decision maker may be appointed.
The only time a patient’s consent may be “presumed” is in an emergency situation
HIPAA
Federal privacy protections for individually identifiable health information. National standards set to protect PHI that is created, maintained, filed, used, or shared.
