Ethical Decision Making In Healthcare

Ethical Decision Making In Healthcare

Introduction

When today everything is in a state of transition, healthcare professionals also encounter a number of issues while deciding what is good for their patients. Provided that what patients choose for themselves may not be the same what their families or doctors perceive should be done, at times these options are shacked in ethical issues. The fundamental tools on which the healthcare professional have to rely when such ethical issues and other such situation arise is the ethical decision making process.

Discussion

Karen Ann Quinlan Case

Karen's Case was the first ever legal case which was later known as the right-to-die movement. She was taken to a hospital unconscious which was possibly due to ingestion of a mixture of barbiturates and alcohol. She was later put on a ventilator with little hopes of life. He farther went to New Jersey court to request that as being her guardian he wants her ventilator to discontinue. Medical experts suggested that under the medical ethics ventilator should continue. The Quinlan's lost the first round of their case in the Supreme Court but at the New Jersey the case went into their favor. Karen was removed from ventilator but continued to get artificial nutrition and hydration. She lived another nine years and died in 1985 (Karen Ann Quinlan Memorial Foundation, 2012).

Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA)

The study of bioethics is a relatively new filed, which is a combination of ethics, legalities and medicine. It emerged in the 1960s, when there was a need to explain how healthcare decisions and laws could be made, who would make and what implications they would leave on the society. The codes of ethical reasons in 1991 for healthcare services continue to develop. The federal law implemented the Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA) in different states. This new legislation was later implemented in hospitals, nursing homes and even in hospice HMOs/PPOS. The law stated that every facility must suggest to patients their legal rights and options to either accept or refuse any treatment, if patients become unable to communicate. The PSDA provisions are:

Written information and summaries regarding institutional polices must be given by the providers to patients about their rights.

Patient's Record must be maintained to show whether the patient has an advance instruction.

Institutions may not differentiate against the patient or refuse care based upon where the patient has executed an advance directive.

Institutions have positive responsibility ...