Ethical Decision Making

Ethical Decision Making

A Situation I Served as the Patient’s Advocate

In my previous organization, an acute care facility, I encountered a patient who had a peculiar medical condition that he had suffered from for a long time. He was confused about the right medications and care that he should undertake. As such, he was in a dilemma and needed guidance to choose what is best for him. I became the patient’s advocate and provided him with the right and essential information regarding his medical condition to enable him to make an informed decision. After understanding all the information I gave him, the patient proceeded to choose the right procedure for handling his medical condition. As the patient’s advocate again, I went on to communicate his preferences to the medical specialist who would treat him. In that case, I also served as the patient’s advocate by supporting his voice regarding his decision.

Legal Ramifications

Advocating for patients is an ethical and legal duty. As such, that duty has a number of ethical ramifications. In my situation with the patient with a peculiar medical condition, there was a possibility of listening too much for the preferences of the patient and causing a medical error in the diagnosis stage. However, in my case, I had to double-check for any medical error in my diagnosis by carefully examining his previous diagnoses and documentation.

I also took my time to communicate with one of his family members to ascertain that the patient had actually been having that medical condition for that long. If I had not followed this procedure, I would have lost my nursing license because of a medical error. Moreover, the hospital would have been sued for sepsis and made to pay for the medical error. Furthermore, the health insurance company would not have reimbursed the hospital had I caused a medical in the name of being the patient’s advocate.

The Role of the Nurse Manager

In advocating for the patient, the role of the nurse manager creates an environment that contributes to patient engagement. The nurse manager can also provide team members with a healthy working environment that fosters collaboration to lead to optimal patient outcomes (Marquis, & Huston, 2017). In my situation, the nurse manager had provided a healthy environment to allow nurses to listen to patients ad act according to their preferences.

The Involvement of the Facility’s Ethics Committee

In my situation, I approached the head of the facility’s ethics committee for advice in my dilemma. The head of the ethics committee played a crucial role in outlining the possible legal and ethical ramifications that I would encounter had I caused any medical error. While reviewing my situation, the committee invited me to join them as a participant-observer in my individual case consultation.

 

Models to Improve the Quality of Decision Making

First, nurse managers and leaders can adopt the bounded rationality model to improve decision making. In this model, they should have the ability to explore all the possible courses of action in light of the set goal (Chand, 2014). This model will make decisions more informed since they require more time and information and greater processing capabilities.

 

Second, nurse leaders and managers use the DECIDE model to improve the quality of their decisions. In this model, nurse managers and leaders can define the problem, establish the criteria, consider all the available options, identify the best option, develop the plan of action and then finally evaluate the solution from the decision (Guo, 2008). This model is particularly more important in healthcare because clinical nursing decisions must be as accurate as possible.