Running header: HEALTH CARE ETHICAL STANDARDS

Health Care Ethical Standards

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HEALTH CARE ETHICAL STANDARDS

Health Care Ethical Standards

Healthcare facilities are guided by ethical practices that ensure the doctors and

other employees work to the expectation of the management and their patients. The

ethical standards are presented to the new employees during the orientation to ensure that

they are all aware of how they are supposed to behave and maintain the ethical standards.

In the United States, health care facilities are expected to uphold exceptional ethical

standards for them to earn the public trust. This paper will discuss five ethical standards

that are already in use in some existing facilities and ways in which those standards can

be presented to the staff during training or orientation.

Patient confidentiality is one of the most important ethical standards in healthcare.

One’s health is a private matter, for one to access health care services, personal

information is required. All this information is personal and is usually given to those in

charge in the health care facility. Employees are not supposed to violate the patient's

confidentiality in any way. By doing so, the patient can be hurt, and there can be legal

and ethical consequences. During training the staffs are supposed to be given of the

examples of cases where there was a violation of the patient’s confidentiality and what

happened to the staff.

Patients relationships is also an ethical issue in health care. Health care providers

are prohibited from entering into a relationship with their patients. Violation of this

ethical conduct, especially when the relationship is sexual can lead to loss of license,

being barred from providing health care services, or even being sued. Entering into
HEALTH CARE ETHICAL STANDARDS
relation is considered to be a violation of patients’ rights and abuse of power by health

workers. During training, the employees are to be given live examples and how to deal

with any such cases.

Malpractice and negligence are ethical conduct that the employees are supposed

to abide by (Kerridge, Lowe, & Stewart, 2009). Defective medical equipment, injuries

caused by the treatment, or putting the life of a patient in danger due to medical error is

considered unethical conduct and can lead to the facility or the employee being sued. The

staff is always advised to be cautious during the treatment process and ensure accuracy.

Live cases are given to the employees, and also methods of avoiding these unethical

conducts like consulting from other senior doctors are advice.

Informed consent is another ethical requirement. The healthcare provider is

required to provide the patient with informed consent for any medical treatment to be

considered legal. If the health care provider fails to do this, any medical procedure is

illegal and homicidal. This can be used to sue the provider if the patients die or suffer

injuries due to the treatment. During the training, the staff is informed of this ethical

conduct and given cases where failure to abide by this conduct led provide to be jailed.

Physician-assisted suicide (PAD) is another ethical conduct. PAD is already legal

in some states like California and Oregon (Myburgh et al. 2016). The doctors can help

the patient to end their lives if the patient wishes; this can only happen if there are much

suffering and low probability of recovering. Staff are taught this during training but

informed about the consequences if they are not careful and do not follow the due

procedure.
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In conclusion, health care facilities have the ethical standards which the staffs are

expected to abide to. These ethical standards all ensure the patients’ rights are protected,

and the provision of services is promoted. This paper has discussed five ethical standards

by two health care facilities, and how these ethical standards can be taught to staff during

orientation and training.

References

Kerridge, I., Lowe, M., & Stewart, C. (2009). Ethics and law for the health

professions (p. 225). Sydney: Federation Press.

Myburgh, J., Abillama, F., Chiumello, D., Dobb, G., Jacobe, S., Kleinpell, R., ... & Torra,

L. B. (2016). End-of-life care in the intensive care unit: Report from the Task

Force of the World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care

Medicine. Journal of critical care, 34, 125-130.