Yanetsys Veliz Alfonso
Patients’ Rights
Patients’ rights form a category of human rights in the context of healthcare. The issues that should be addressed in the category of patient rights are; consent, confidentiality, emergency treatment, continuity of care, and patient competence. Healthcare professionals can ensure that patients’ rights are protected and upheld in several ways. The most basic form of ensuring that patients’ rights are kept and protected is acquiring the appropriate knowledge about the ethical practices in various contexts and understanding why the ethical principles have been put in place (Wheeler et al., 2019). Creating a proper awareness of patients’ rights allows relevant application in clinical areas. Understanding the rights of patients ensures respect for their autonomy. The second approach towards upholding and protecting patients’ rights involves collaborating with patients regarding their healthcare goals. A comprehensive understanding of the patient’s goals promotes shared decision-making and develops an understanding of the various components of patient rights. Healthcare providers should also work collaboratively with the patient to arrive at an appropriate plan best suited for the two extremes. Shared decision-making promotes patient rights, including healthcare provider-patient trust, beneficence, and patient autonomy.
Another strategy by healthcare providers to ensure patients’ rights are protected and upheld involves ensuring informed consent. According to informed consent provisions, the healthcare provider should provide accurate information to the patient or their representative. This helps to make informed decisions regarding the care to be provided. To facilitate informed consent, healthcare professionals should educate the patient about a particular intervention or procedure’s benefits, alternatives, and risks (Ari, 2020). The healthcare provider should also ensure that the patient can make voluntary decisions on whether to proceed with the medical intervention. Healthcare professionals should also practice distributive justice to ensure that all patients are treated equitably and fairly. This means that nursing officers should not only treat all patients in a particular situation the same but also respect the rights of these patients. According to the policies and laws of healthcare, professionals in the sector are required to establish easy access to healthcare resources. Additionally, healthcare providers can protect and uphold patients’ rights by ensuring the patient-provider fiduciary relationship. In this case, the healthcare provider should act to serve the patient’s best interests (Vergallo et al., 2021). The healthcare expert can also integrate informative and deliberative relationships to serve the client’s best interest. In informative correlation, the doctor helps the patient to make the most appropriate decision without luring them to a particular choice. On the other hand, a deliberative relationship is cultivated when the patient and the doctor collaborate to achieve the goals of the patent while preserving the values of both parties. Another strategy that healthcare providers can use to uphold autonomy is listening to patient’s concerns and then, based on that information, giving the patient the necessary information to enable them to participate in decision-making.
References
Ari, A. (2020). Practical strategies for safely and effectively delivering aerosolized medications to patients with COVID-19.
Respiratory Medicine, p.
167, 105987.
Vergallo, G. M., Zaami, S., & Marinelli, E. (2021). The COVID-19 pandemic and contact tracing technologies, between upholding the right to health and personal data protection.
European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences,
25(5), 24492456.
Wheeler, M., de Bourmont, S., Paul-Emile, K., Pfeffinger, A., McMullen, A., Critchfield, J. M., & Fernandez, A. (2019). Physician and trainee experiences with patient bias.
JAMA internal medicine,
179(12), 1678–1685.
Jorge Abalo Redden
Respect for patients’ rights is crucial as it builds trust and confidence between them and healthcare professionals. An environment that demonstrates a quality relationship with one another contributes towards achieving the set goals in a healthcare organization. As such, medical professionals have an essential role in protecting patients’ rights, including upholding their privacy rights. Healthcare professionals can ensure the protection and support of patients’ rights by knowing the existence of patients’ rights, understanding state laws regarding patient rights, observing HIPAA rules, and practicing medical ethics.
Medical professionals need to understand that patients have rights guaranteed by the constitution through various state laws and Acts. Such knowledge is vital since it promotes an environment of mutual respect when patients know that their information and critical data are in safe hands. As such, healthcare professionals must understand all patient rights laws (Varkey, 2021). More so, there is a need for publishing lists of patients’ rights to ensure that all health workers understand and practice them. Examples of healthcare facilities with a list of patients’ rights include Mayo Clinic, Cedars, and Cleveland. The information is crucial and beneficial to all stakeholders involved in healthcare provision.
Medical professionals can also promote patient privacy by understanding medical or nursing ethics and practicing them when handling patients. The ethical codes reinforce the critical role of nurses in promoting patients’ rights. Nurses and other healthcare staff must respect others regardless of race, ethnicity, income, age, or other factors (American Hospital Association, 2022). The American Nurses Association has established different provisions which connect to patients’ rights, such as respect for human dignity and trust with patients. As such, nurses must intervene in matters that touch on patients’ privacy and other issues. In addition, medical professionals should ensure total commitment to providing care services and advocate for their safety and rights. This includes ensuring confidentiality and reducing potential harm at all treatment levels (American Hospital Association, 2022). Collaboration is critical for healthcare professionals to achieve an environment that protects human rights and safeguards important client information.
Medical professionals must observe HIPAA rules regarding privacy rights, including using the collected health data. HIPAA also informs healthcare workers and insurance firms about patient information that should be kept private. Healthcare professionals should follow the guidelines and never disclose any information that violates the provisions (Olejarczyk & Young, 2019). Patients have a right to have a copy of their medical records; as such, nurses or other professionals should not deny them the right to access their own data. In case of missing or wrong information entered into the information systems, patients have a right to have them corrected. Following such guidelines and any other provision that protects the infringement of patients’ rights is crucial.
In conclusion, patients have rights, especially regarding treatment services and their data. Nurses and other medical professionals must promote such rights and ensure their protection. This can be through understanding the HIPAA laws, adhering to state guidelines, and understanding that patients deserve such rights. Information privacy, use, sharing, and disclosure should follow the provisions of the law for effective services. As such, medical professionals must ensure the protection of patients’ rights all the time.
References
American Hospital Association (2022). The patient care partnership.
https://www.aha.org/other-
resources/patient-care-partnership
Olejarczyk, J. P., & Young, M. (2019). Patient Rights and Ethics.
https://europepmc.org/article/nbk/nbk538279
Varkey, B. (2021). Principles of clinical ethics and their application to practice. Medical Principles
and Practice, 30(1), 17–28.
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Alina Leon
1- The patient should be prescribed aspirin and a P2Y12 inhibitor like clopidogrel or prasugrel, two of the most important medications. A low molecular weight heparin or fondaparinux should also be added, and this is equally crucial to avoid thrombus development (Ashorobi, Ameer&Fernandez, 2022). Another option for treating chest pain and enhancing blood flow to the heart is to start a nitroglycerin drip. In order to control his hypertension, the patient should additionally receive oxygen therapy and be administered either an ACE (angiotensin converting enzyme) inhibitor or an ARB (angiotensin receptor blocker).
2- The patient’s treatment should be continued for a long time to guarantee that his immune system is recovered to normal levels, taking into account his present health and prior, or rather past, medical history. Aspirin and a P2Y12 inhibitor, which stop the growth of thrombi, should be taken even after being discharged from the hospital. Statin should be used throughout to treat his hyperlipidemia condition. Additionally, the importance of continuing on an ACE inhibitor or ARB to manage hypertension and a sulfonylurea or insulin to manage his diabetes is also highlighted. (Ashorobi, Ameer, & Hernandez, 2022) He should keep taking allopurinol and hydrochlorothiazide to treat his hypertension and gout, respectively.
3-
To treat his diabetes and hyperlipidemia, CP can benefit from lifestyle changes such quitting smoking, drinking less alcohol, and eating a balanced diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol (Rubenfire, 2018). To enhance his general cardiovascular health, he should also do frequent exercise and lose weight. CP ought to think about routinely checking his blood pressure and blood sugar levels. He has to be encouraged to schedule routine check-ups and follow-up appointments with a cardiologist and a primary care doctor.
REFERENCES:
D. Ashorobi, M. Ameer, and R. Fernando (2022). Thrombosis.
Barbara Jaime
CP suffers from coronary heart disease, which happens when a buildup of fatty substances in the heart arteries and blood flow slows or stops. The chest pain (Angina) might have been triggered by a physical activity that CP was doing, shoveling snow. CP should be recommended blood thinning medications that reduce the clotting of arteries. CP should take clopidogrel 75mg/day. It is combined with aspirin to treat acute chest pain, maintain blood vessel patency, and prevent blood clots. (NHS, 2020). Also, ACE inhibitors such as lisinopril as a second medication for the treatment of hypertension. CP is a diabetic patient with hyperlipidemia that needs hypoglycemic medication such as metformin 500 mg twice a day ( it is important to monitor renal function) and atorvastatin 40 mg daily to minimize the cardiovascular risk.
CP should continue taking Hydrochlorothiazide, 25 mg, once daily since he has high BP, which makes the heart and arteries work strenuously. Heart and artery dysfunction is possible if this condition persists for a long time. Additionally, CP should continue taking Allopurinol, 300 mg once daily, to treat high blood uric acid levels. Small, pointed crystals can form in and around your joints if uric acid builds up, as can happen if the body produces too much acid or if the kidneys do not filter it out efficiently enough.
The lifestyle modifications that can be recommended for CP include physical activity, eating a healthy diet, quitting smoking, and less excessive drinking of beer. Regular physical activity makes maintaining or reducing excess weight easier (CDC, 2021). Additionally, it helps alleviate stress and improves your mood while lowering your risk of developing cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, and even some malignancies (CDC, 2021). It is recommended that CP eats many fresh fruits and vegetables, decreased salt intake, and has fewer processed diets. Eating a diet heavy in saturated fats has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Improvements in cardiac function are seen within a short while, and the increased risk of heart attack is reduced by half after a year if one refrains from smoking and cuts back on alcohol consumption (Osei et al., 2019).
References
CDC. (2021, July 19). Coronary Artery Disease (CAD). CDC. Retrieved January 24, 2023, from
https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/coronary_ad.htm#:~:text=Lifestyle%20changes%2C%20such%20as%20eating,pressure%2C%20or%20an%20irregular%20heartbeat
NHS. (2020, March 10). Coronary heart disease. NHS. Retrieved January 24, 2023, from
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronary-heart-disease/
Osei, A. D., Mirbolouk, M., Orimoloye, O. A., Dzaye, O., Uddin, S. I., Benjamin, E. J., … & Blaha, M. J. (2019). Association between e-cigarette use and cardiovascular disease among never and current combustible-cig