Paper Example on Critical Decision Making for Providers

Introduction

Mike, the lab technician, comes in for work late in spite of promising his supervisor that he will rectify his tendency of arriving late at work. Mike is the breadwinner to his family providing for his wife and newborn baby. Henceforth, the job is crucial to their survival, and he wouldn't want his contract terminated as his supervisor had indicated if he continued report late. However, Mike left home 20 minutes earlier, but an accident on his route to work delayed him. Upon arriving, he notices a spill on the floor of another work area and finds himself at a dilemma in which he has to decide whether or not to make sure the problem is rectified. Safeguarding the spill means that he will be late and risks losing his job. He would also choose to ignore the spill as it is on another department and probably it will be cleaned up when he clocks in. Thesis: this paper seeks to assess the consequences arising from ignoring such conditions, indicating the duty of care, and ways to ensure such circumstances do not happen in the future.

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Consequences of Failure to Report

In an effort to secure his job and avoid termination. More so, he has a list of responsibilities from the previous day he needs to accomplish on top of the day's assignment. Henceforth, he chooses not to report the incident in a bid to report on time and keep his job. However, an incident occurred owing to the spill shortly after Mike passed the spill ignoring it. It caused a lady to fall injuring her badly in which it appears as if she has a broken hip. The patient is disturbed that such an incident would occur in a medical facility.

Mike is overwhelmed by a guilty conscience that he would have prevented the occurrence of the incident by reporting the spill. In as much as Mike does not have a duty of care to the patient, the hospital does owe the patients that visit the facility a direct duty of care. The hospital could get to the bottom of the issue and pin the fault on him which could lead to a termination of his job contract. On the other hand, Mike would admit to the supervisor and narrate the proceedings of that morning and support his claim. By accepting to the issues that proceeded the spill, he risks losing his job.

However, on ethical constraints, Mike will prove a morally eligible professional by admitting liability of the incident (Jennings & Trautman, pp. 187) and raise the need for training programs for health practitioners on duty of care and patient safety. The patient might feel that the hospital is incompetent in its care system and sue the facility for negligence. If the patient successfully defends her claim, the hospital will be forced to pay for the damages and support to the patient. The spill indicates that the hospital has maintenance concerns and risks being closed down or suspension of its activities until proper measurements are put into place. The incident would also show that the facility has limited human resources in its department and requires a significant provision. Mike would lose his job owing to the poor judgment of the consequences resulting from the spill.

Addressing the Issue

Educating on Duty of Care

A function of care is a legal or moral obligation of one person to ensure the wellbeing and safety of others (Moss, Nelson, Connor, Wensley, McKinlay & Boulton, pp. 275-288). An individual may owe a duty of care to another by ensuring that they do not suffer any unreasonable loss or harm due to actions they miss or partake on. However, no duty of care exists concerning pure omissions in which, acts if taken, would prevent or minimize harm to another individual. Nevertheless, in situations where an individual creates a dangerous condition, a duty of care arises in protecting others from harm's way resulting from the state. In cases where such a duty is found to be breached, a legal liability is imposed on the tortfeasor and compensate the victim for any losses incurred.

The hospital is a facility where patients come for treatment, owes a duty of care to the people coming to the facility in which they have formed a relationship. Henceforth, the facility owes a duty of care to the patients that come to the hospital. The spill led to an unfortunate incident in which a lady suffered injury and would result in legal action taken against the facility. It is, therefore, important that Mike, health practitioners, and other workers go through a training program to stress the need for ensuring that the facility of free from any dangerous situations that may cause harm to patients and visitors.

Having a Collective Responsibility

To ensure that the hospital operations run as smoothly as possible, departments should follow their indicated duties and responsibilities. More so, practitioners should adhere to items set in place to avoid conflict of responsibilities and duties (Smith, Harris, Woznitza, Maresse, & Sale, pp. 204-211). In as much as a concise developed set of a system to follow up is in place, conditions arise where some unforeseen situations happen and cause grave harm or delay of activities. Concerning a medical facility, each practitioner has their responsibilities relating to their profession while the emergency responses significantly relate to health concerns and not maintenance worries such as spills.

A collective responsibility refers to a situation where every member of a group is responsible for actions regardless of an individual's participation in decision making or rank (Stacey et al., pp 35-41). Henceforth, it is a collective responsibility for all the practitioners to report or undertake upon themselves to correct such issues. Therefore, it is vital that Mike and other practitioners know that they have a responsibility to fix any problems that may lead to the harm of patients and visitors.

Conclusion

Conditions such as spills in a medical facility may seem not risky but may have dangerous consequences on the people coming in and out of the facility. Such conditions take a few minutes to correct and with proper communication dangerous events are averted. No matter the situation under which a practitioner is in, he or she ought to undertake upon themselves the responsibility of ensuring the safety of individuals around the hospital. Most importantly, the management should have programs educating the duty of care that practitioners have on their patients and indicate situations where collective responsibility is imminent. More so, the administration should be lenient in cases where the greater good arising from correcting an event surpasses the current problems between a practitioner and the management. Health practitioners should also be ethical in their undertakings and consider patients and not themselves only.

References

Jennings, M., & Trautman, L. J. (2016). Ethical Culture and Legal Liability: The GM Switch Crisis and Lessons in Governance. BUJ Sci. & Tech. L., 22, 187.

Moss, C., Nelson, K., Connor, M., Wensley, C., McKinlay, E., & Boulton, A. (2015). Patient experience in the emergency department: inconsistencies in the ethic and duty of care. Journal of clinical nursing, 24(1-2), 275-288.

Smith, T., Harris, J., Woznitza, N., Maresse, S., & Sale, C. (2015). The conceptualisation of the characteristics of advanced practitioners in the medical radiation professions. Journal of medical radiation sciences, 62(3), 204-211.

Stacey, G., Felton, A., Morgan, A., Stickley, T., Willis, M., Diamond, B., ... & Dumenya, J. (2016). A critical narrative analysis of shared decision-making in acute inpatient mental health care. Journal of interprofessional care, 30(1), 35-41.