Describing the Changes of Attitude to Health Professionals
The matter of quality services improvement as well as patient safety enhancement has been the major concern of health care professionals. In this respect, the introduction of interpersonal collaboration as well as nurse reforms can greatly contribute to educating nurse specialists because team work provides more challenges and solutions to existing legal and ethical problems. Within the context of existing reforms, approaches, and policies, the role of a nurse professional is more clearly identified. Hence, each specialist should have certain legal and ethical liabilities and provide high quality services; he/she should be more committed to evidence-based practice and team working.
More importantly, nursing implies great responsibility in front of globalized communities to deliver more viable solutions and recommendations on improving and upgrading the overall level of nursing specialties all over the world.
Besides personal qualities, responsibilities, and ethical codes, health care sphere, each nursing professional should be aware of problems and concerns existing in other health care systems worldwide which will create much more opportunities for personal growth and development as well as for the rise of more effective strategies of treating patients. In whole, while studying the course, I have realized that cooperation, mutual agreement, partnership and social interaction are the key pillars in dealing with patients and enhancing their safety.
Such shifts have led to the idea that the role of background, skills, and experiences provided by a separate nurse should be borrowed by other nurses professionals to enhancing, and implement a more consistent and systematic approach to patient therapy. Presenting these ethical and legal principles provide a positive shift from traditional views in health care system and nursing in particular.
Identifying the Most Effective Knowledge and Insights for Promoting Health Care Reform
With regard the profile of a nurse professional presented above, significant changes should be introduced to the health care delivery in general, including financial sphere, services and resources allocation. Particular emphasis is placed on not only technological innovation but on changes in the conceiving the notion of health care delivery (Kovner., Kickman, and Jonas, 2008, p. 9). The latter is better understood from the angle of information confidentiality and privacy, ethical and legal responsibility, medical errors management, and understanding global health care concepts.
Considering the aspect of information privacy and confidentiality, it should be stressed that nurses should now be more legally liable for the information that is monitored and exchanged. Otherwise, improper usage and or, what is even more problematic, information leakage can negatively influence the quality of patient treatment and healthcare delivery. According to Berwick (2002), “to use [information] for any public purpose, even to speak about it, risks crossing a boundary of propriety and confidentiality that ought not to be crossed” (p. 21). Health care professionals, therefore, should be more responsible for ethical issues and for managing health care management.
Due to the fact that privacy and confidentiality of information depend largely on technology as well, it is necessary to provide considerable improvement for knowledge and technology management to eliminate electronic medical errors. What is more important, “if legislation is passed that requires the permission of each consumer for transmission of medical information, it could severely limit the extent to which information could be stored or transmitted along health care providers” (Kovner, Knickman, and Jonas, 2008, p. 378).
Considering ethical and legal responsibilities, each health care professional should strictly adhere to the all codes of conducts as established in the medical sphere. According to Jencks, Gelinas, and Coyle (2009), nurses should be aware of the importance of communication with patients because the quality of services and health care deliver is largely dependent on this factor. In addition, before implementing particular programs, much emphasis should be made on meeting the patients’ preferences, concerns, and needs. Nurse professionals should make use of their background and experiences to solve problems and provide the best solutions. Finally, each personal working in the medical sphere should conceive the concept of global health care because it outlines the basic requirements and standards to be strictly followed.
Ideas, Principles, and Concepts Contributing to Ethical Responsibilities
Naturally, nurses often face a number of moral and ethical dilemmas in daily clinical practice and it is a great challenge for them to provide the most viable solutions. To avoid problematic and ambivalent situations, there should be code of ethics under which nurses should take their responsibility and carry out their obligations (Mallik, Hall, and Howard, 2009, p. 15). In particular, patients should know the specifics of patients’ rights, which is the core component of an individual autonomy. Hence “nurses as autonomous practitioners are ethical and legally accountable for the delivery of nursing care” (Mallik, Hall, and Howard, 2009, p. 15).
Regarding the above, different ethical approaches are practiced in clinical practice and one of them is a virtue ethics approach that consists in pursuing the ideals of social and health care services. It also emphasizes moral qualities of nurses and the health care staff in general. The examples of moral qualities involve: care, professional wisdom, trustworthiness, courage and integrity, and justice.
Presenting New Vision of Relations between Legal and Ethical Guidelines
After thorough analysis of above ethical and legal standards being foundational values of health care professionals, it can be stated that U. S. health care system requires a number of introductions and improvement to make it more flexible in decision-making process. To enlarge on this, the excellence and efficiency of clinical practice should be premised on such issues as truthfulness, autonomy, confidentiality, justice and fairness.
Ethical norms are involved into professional ethical codes which affect the behavioral patterns of practicing nurses. Ethical and moral dilemmas occur in the cases experienced in practice are less frequent than decision reflecting best options to all concerned, including the patient. If a health care professionals neglect ethical and moral dilemmas, it can cause a number of psychological problems and considerably moral distress. However, placing the priority of patient right at the heart of health care delivery provide much more benefits contributing to optimization of the entire system and creating a favorable ground for meeting the patients’ needs.
Beside adherence to ethical and legal practices, the concept of interprofessional collaboration and leadership issues should also be taken into the deepest consideration that can introduce positive changes to a clinical environment. Here the present shifts should not be considered a threat to stability, but development opportunities. In this respect, nurses should be ready to change and innovation to cope with sufficiently and react to them in a proper way.
References
Berwick, D. (2002). Escape fire: Lessons for the future of health care. New York: The Commonwealth Fund. Web.
Jencks, S., Gelinas, L., and Coyle C. (2009). Quality Improvement and Safety. Web.
Kovner, A. R., Kickman, J., and Jonas, S. (2008). Jonas and Kovner’s Health Care Delivery in the United States. US: Springer Publishing Company.
Mallik, M., Hall, C., and Howard, D. (2009) Nursing Knowledge and Practice: Foundations for Decision Making. New York, NY: Elsever Health Sciences.