Ethical Dilemma
Invisible Patients is a touching and powerful documentary that describes the work of a nurse practitioner who helps the most vulnerable patients to live and struggle with their illnesses. Every case described in the documentary is unique and reveals certain problems peculiar to the modern healthcare sector. However, there is also a common ethical dilemma that unites all patients in the case. Their complex states caused by severe chronic illnesses, impairment, and poverty become the central factor depriving them of high-quality care and hopes for better lives. The NP working with them demonstrates incompleteness of the existing system that cultivates this ethical dilemma. People in complex states become isolated and unable to access and afford the care they need. It humiliates and affects their dignity and quality of life.
Disruptive Innovator
Collaborating with these people and seeing their suffering, the NP is not able to disregard it. Perfectly realizing the adverse effects this ethical dilemma has on patients states, she uses her own unique approaches to improve their quality of life and support in their struggle against diseases. First, she visits them at their homes to improve their access to care and ensure that individuals will be treated in an appropriate way. Second, she suggests her services at an extremely low cost. In fact, working as a physician, she is paid like a common NP. In such a way she becomes a Disruptive Innovator as she introduces another model of care that becomes more efficient and could trigger debates about the issue and its reconsideration.
Solution
Thus, there are several ways to overcome this ethical dilemma. First, as the NP from the case shows us, health workers could use the same approach to working with patients to enhance their efficiency and stimulate positive outcomes. It will apparently help disabled or poor people to obtain the medical care their need and preserve their health status at the appropriate level. Additionally, communicating with NPs, patients will share their problems to find some solutions to them. NPS working with this category of patients should be supported by local social services who also have specific resources aimed at helping these individuals.
Benefits and Costs
In such a way, the suggested option becomes one of the possible solutions to the problem as it will help to align cooperation between the healthcare sector and social services that have potent tools to assist these people. Additionally, the cost of the suggested solution is comparatively low as it does not demand new equipment or the creation of specific centers (Harris, Bhatti, Prime, del Castillo, & Parston, 2017). NPs should be provided with additional payment for their work. The option will obviously help to resolve the mentioned ethical dilemma and help all people at the edge of the healthcare sector.
References
Harris, M., Bhatti, Y., Prime, M., del Castillo, J., & Parston, G. (2017). Low-cost innovation in healthcare: what you find depends on where you look. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 111(2), 47-50. Web.
US Department of Health & Human Services. (2005). The Nuremberg code. Web.