Financial Implications of Ethical Challenges - Term Paper Example

? Financial implications of Ethical Challenges Financial implication Currently, the cost of health care has plummeted to great heights especially in the US. This can be attributed to the high costs of living. This forces medicines and other medical equipment to be very expensive. Providing high quality health care involves ensuring ethical considerations are followed in everyday activities of health care. This part of the paper focuses on financial implications associated with ethical considerations in Mount Sinai Hospital, Manhattan. It is of significance to posit that for ethical considerations to be followed, health institutions are ought to create and implement appropriate strategies as well as rules and guidelines that will govern the daily activities of the health institution. This involves a lot of financial input and time to create. According to Post Blustein and Dubler (2007), ethics are considered costly. According to him, observing ethics in the workplace will involve a lot of time and effort, egotism, though clients are presented with a chance to benefit from high quality of services. Individuals seeking treatment or health care services in Mount Sinai prefer it to a great extent due to high quality services as a great proportion of ethics is followed. The more the clients, the more the revenue generated by the hospital. This shows that total revenue generated by Mount Sinai Hospital is dependent on ethical considerations. To ensure that ethics are followed by all employees in the hospital, Mount Sinai conducts regular trainings to employees geared towards presenting them with basic knowledge on ethics. This involves a lot of money to plan though it is aimed towards empowering employees. As evidenced in other health care institutions, patients’ medical records in Mount Sinai are also digitalized. This requires the hospital to design security programs and conform to it. Designing an effective health related programs is in itself expensive and time consuming. Available sources put a lot of emphasis on the importance of ethical considerations in health care. A physician or any other medical practitioner is only allowed to share any information regarding the health of a patient with consent of the patient, or when required to do so by a court of law. Physician can be sued by the patient if s/he is proved to have made public any personal and medical information associated with the patient. In such a case, a health institution may lose a lot of money through lawyer fees. Where a patient requires to be compensated for the damage caused, a health institution would lose a lot of money in settling these cases. Though such a case has been hardly heard of in Mount Sinai, maintaining plans of actions that prevents such occurrences from happening involves a lot of finances and time. If a health care institution is found guilty of breach of confidentiality or sharing a patient’s medical information with third parties, medical license may be cancelled (Ashcroft, Dawson and Draper, 2007). In a nutshell, creating and establishing plans of action that will ensure ethical and moral considerations within a health institution is very expensive in terms of money and time as I involves a lot of effort. Duty to report In the modern world, millions of people have been affected by many chronic illnesses. Millions of people are living with the HIV virus. In other words, people are affected by a wide range of illnesses that necessitates medical attention. In the course of treatment, a physician or medical practitioner ought to treat any divulged information by the patient with utmost confidentiality. However, there are some cases where morally the medical practitioner is supposed to report the matter to authorities. This part of the paper describes an ethical dilemma associated with moral considerations in health care. For public health concerns, the government and the public health sector of a particular country is required to follow up on prevalence of diseases of public concern. For instance, tuberculosis is a disease of public concern as it is a communicable disease. Therefore, a medical practitioner involved in these cases is required to report to the authorities regardless of the fact that s/he is contravening his/her oath of confidentiality. A patient has the right to decide whether s/he will take medicines or undergo therapy as long as s/he is sane. However, there are cases where the medical practitioner has the right to report the matter to a third party, a third party in this case being the government and public health sector. It is mandatory for individuals suffering from certain communicable disease such as tuberculosis to take their prescription (Boyle, DuBose and Ellingson, 2004). Though this can be referred to as breach of confidentiality, the medical practitioner is protected by the law. Another example is where an individual suffering from HIV/AIDS puts the health of other individuals at risk. In such a case, the medical practitioner has a right to warn others. There are alternatives to this. First of all, the medical practitioner can invite the patient to his/her office for counseling. According to O’Neill (2003), it would be important to explain to the patient posing danger to others that doing so is a criminal offence and s/he can be sentence to serve time in prison or a fine. In doing so, the patient will see the need to respect the rights of others hence avoid actions that may lead to the spread of certain illnesses such HIV/AIDS. Offering proper guidance and counseling instead of reporting or warning others will prevent the spread of diseases. Secondly, it would be important to advise and encourage the patient to reveal their health status to individuals s/he might have put at risk. This is important as anybody who could have contracted disease as a result of contact with the patient will have a chance to receive treatment timely and aptly. Guidance and counseling is the most appropriate alternative. Plans of action need to be implemented to ensure patients receive relevant and appropriate information and facts about a disease. In implementing these plans of action, a health practitioner may conduct it orally, or even give reading materials such as books and magazines with the relevant information particularly legal implications of intentionally spreading a deadly disease. The social media, television, and newspapers also form a basis through which information and facts on a particular issue can be shared. References Ashcroft, R. E., Dawson, A., & Draper, H. (2007). Principles of Health Care Ethics. West Sussex, England: Joh Wiley & Sons. Boyle, P. J., DuBose, E. R., & Ellingson, S. J. (2004). Organizational Ethics in Health Care: Principles, Case, and Practical Solutions. San Francisco, USA: Jossey-Bass. O’Neill, O. (2003). Some Limits of Informed Consent: Journal of Medical Ethics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University. Post, L. F., Blustein, J., & Dubler, N. N. (2007). Handbook for Health Care Ethics Committees. Baltimore, Maryland: The John Hopkins University Press. Read More