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Current Ethical Issues
The Patton-Fuller community Hospital was established in 1975, and after 35 years of
service, does not have an ethics program. Most hospitals have a whole ethics committee because
patient confidentiality is so important in the medical field. On their website they have sections
describing information technology, human resources, facilities, and corporate officers. Their
human resources department has a long mission statement that describes their hiring,
termination, and working practices but there is not really a mission statement for the whole
company except for the small paragraph on the front page.
At Patton-Fuller Community Hospital, we treat the most important health concerns -
yours. We provide healthcare services designed to meet your needs at every stage of your
life. Patient care is our most important job. We want to make sure your experience is as
pleasant as possible. (University of Phoenix, 2012)
The hospital seems like it is on the right track, it just needs an ethics committee and to be
careful when hiring its nurses. There have been numerous counseling’s and write-ups on
tardiness and even quite a few on nurses confusing the patients and giving them the wrong
medicine. One patient was in severe pain because a nurse gave his pain medicine to the wrong
patient and instead of giving the correct patient the medicine when they found out, they waited
until it was time for his next dose so that they did not waste a dose on the patient that was not
supposed to have it. One of the employees even ordered and gave a patient the wrong type of
blood during a transfusion and the patient went into shock and had to be sent to intensive care.
There was not a write up for these two incidents only “incident reports” that were put into their
employee files.
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First of all, an ethics committee must be established inside the hospital itself. The
functions of this ethics committee include education to start. Education should include the
committee itself keeping up to date with ethical practices and teaching all hospital staff of ethical
practices. The second area of the ethics committee should be to include specific case
management. Whenever a problem arises, it should be brought before the ethics committee so
that actions can be discussed before carried out. The third aspect should be policy review,
revise, and development. When established, the first thing the ethics committee should do is to
review the policies already in place and revise them if necessary; then develop new policies
fitting for the hospital. Next, there should be quarterly meetings with management staff to
review current problems and to educate them on how they can make sure these problems do not
arise again. (Gillette, 2002)
Patton-Fuller Community Hospital Ethics Statement
One of the most important aspects of hospital administration is patient confidentiality, we
promise to exercise confidentiality to protect patient information and personal conversations
between doctor and patient. Medical records will be protected and sealed if not being used.
PFCH will do their utmost to protect themselves and surrounding patients from the transmission
of communicable diseases and pathogens, but in the same aspect, not make the infectious patient
feel uncomfortable. Although profit-making is a large part of every business, we will not make it
known with aggressive commercials. Making patient’s lives better and keeping people healthy
are what we will strive for the most. We will not recommend any services that the patient does
not absolutely need. We will always be honest and upfront with our patients regarding their
welfare and treatments. We have shifted our healthcare research to developing countries so that
there is less investment and more focus on our patients that need help now in the hospital.
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References
Gillette, Michael. (2002). Functions of an Ethics Program: An Introduction into Doing Medical
Ethics. Article retrieved from http://www.bsvinc.com/ethics_function.htm.
University of Phoenix. (2012). Website retrieved from
https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/cist/vop/Healthcare/PFCH/index.asp.
