Leaders Obligation When Discharging Patients - Essay Example

Leaders Obligation When Discharging Patients Leaders Obligation When Discharging Patients My obligation as a leader in this situation is to ensure a timely discharge of patients according to protocols and guidelines and secure the best outcomes possible. There is need to ensure passable communication between practitioners, patients, and their families to agree on the person responsible for specific actions and settle on the process and timing of discharge. Another obligation is to help patients who are not in a position to make such a decision (Wong, Yam, Cheung, Leung, Chan, Wong, and Yeoh, 2011).

There are diverse influences related to this issue. From a social perspective, timely discharge may appreciably improve a patients health and decrease the chance of readmission of patients. Social responsibility is essential even for the poor and the disadvantaged. Political influences are evident in legislations that intend to improve the healthcare system through the reduction of health care costs and bettering its quality by ensuring appropriate behavior among health care providers. Healthcare reforms demand for appropriate behavior in managed care in spite of political influences (Wong, Yam, Cheung, Leung, Chan, Wong, and Yeoh, 2011).

Legally, there are court cases and lawsuits in case hospitals handle discharge inappropriately. Besides, nurses have an ethical obligation to attend to their patients and ensure their moral wellbeing without any conflict of interest. In terms of regulation, it is in line with good practices in hospital discharge process. There are diverse skills and strategies that a nurse leader should use to advocate for positive change related to discharge. Discharge is an ongoing process that should start at the earliest opportunity, and not be an isolated event.

Positive change involves minimization of the number of readmissions and enrichment of the financial well-being of healthcare systems. Other strategies include pre-discharge interventions such as medication reconciliation and patient education, and post-discharge interventions such as home visits (Hachem, Canar, Fullam, Gallan, Hohmann, and Johnson, 2014). ReferencesHachem, F., Canar, J., Fullam, F., Gallan, A., Hohmann, S., and Johnson, C. (2014). The relationships between HCAHPS communication and discharge satisfaction items and hospital readmissions.

Patient Experience Journal: Vol. 1: Iss. Two, Article 12.Wong, E., Yam, C., Cheung, A., Leung, M., Chan, F., Wong, F., and Yeoh, E. (2011). Barriers to effective discharge planning: a qualitative study investigating the perspectives of frontline healthcare professionals. BMC Health Services Research 11:242.  Doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-11-242.