NSG2ANB Bachelor Of Nursing Assignment

Partnering With Consumers: Patients’ Knowledge of Their Rights

The health service organization’s leaders, device systems that support partnering with carers, patients and other consumers to enhance the quality and safety of care. Partnering with consumers encourage their participation in program planning and design, organizational governance at the health service and most importantly in one’s individual care. Partnering with consumers leads to safer patient care, minimized risks and consequently better health outcomes (Haskell and Lord, 2017). It generates a health service that is receptive to patient and carercontributions, requirements as well as priorities.

Patient’s rights is one of the basic concerns in health care. Application of the patient’s rights law is intended to produce a good medical practice. Also if both the patient and the doctor are aware of these rights, the implementation of this law can improve their relationship. This paper is therefore focused on patients’ knowledge of their rights concerning health care and how it impacts on the quality of the services provided (Edvardsson, Watt and Pearce, 2017)

Impacts of Patients’ Knowledge of Their Rights on the Quality of Care

Patients have three main rights relating to their health care. These are the right to:

• decide if to undergo medical treatment or not, after receiving an explanation of the risks associated with the treatment and what it involves
• confidentiality of information about the treatment and medical condition
• be treated by thehealth care provider with skill and reasonable care

This rights can however be violated for instance where themedical practitioner shares sensitive medical information in order to relieve their stress or posts pictures of the patient on social mediawithout the latter’s consent (Snow and Fleming, 2014). Patient’s knowledge of his or her rights is crucial in ensuring that these rights are not violated and that they receive the care they deserve.

If the care recipient feels like their rights have been or are being ignored or dishonored, he or she has a right to raise complaints to the care provider’s professional body or the commissioner of health and community services or even seek legal remedies (Carman and Workman, 2017). The health professional should offer the patient with the opportunity to raise any kind of questions about their health for example about a slow recovery or why they are continuing to experience problems.

Through this knowledge, the consumer of a health service can access the health care that is appropriate for their specific needs therefore ensuring that their necessities will be met. They can also withdraw consent at any time, refuse a specified treatment or obtain another’s opinions where required all to ascertain that they acquire the best quality care.

Implementation

Many patients in my organization are not cognizant of their rights (Almoajel, 2013). Sometimes the health care providers discredit their patient’s rights especially through sharing of medical data. This is, particularly for very serious medical issues which emotionally burden these health professionals. Lack of knowledge on these rights by the patients or their loved ones means that no complaints will be raised against these professionals and thus no legal action will be taken or where the patient is unconscious (Khademi, Mohammadi and Vanaki, 2017). Most of the service providers are aware of patient’s rights and the consequences but may choose to ignore them (Meggetto, Ward and Isaccs,2018). Some medical practitioners and other care provider’s, however, go to the extent of educating their patients on their rights in an attempt to ensure that the consumer receives satisfactory services.

On the other hand, some patients are mindful of their rights and duties which makes the service provision easier and delivers quality care to the patients at the end of it all. These are the patients that are most satisfied with the health services they receive since they have not only demanded answers to all the necessary questions but they also acquired adequate knowledge of what the treatment involves and a sufficient explanation of the related risks before the onset of the medication.

Considerations for My Future Professional Practice

To promote person-centered care, it is important to involve the patients in decision making about their health (Couët et al., 2015). This is to allow them to make an informed resolution about their care. Decision making about medical treatment and screening where there are a number of options to choose from is not easy. The technical nature of the medication process and the risks associated with it may not be clear or even known by the patients or their loved ones. The health professionals should hence explain all the aspects of the treatment to the patients and/or their loved ones in an easily understandable language (Haskell and Lord, 2017). They should then be involved in the decision making process concerning their wellbeing. In this facet, patient decision aids may be incorporated. These are evidence-based materials that help people become involved in decision making by clarifying personal beliefs and providing info about the options and possible outcomes. They include videos, booklets and even websites.

In future I would consider involving my patients in making decisions that directly or indirectly relate to their healthiness. This would be after providing them with every detail concerning the treatment no matter how sensitive it would be. This would help them in understanding their rights and duties more succinctly and give them more fulfillment regarding the services they receive. I would not only honor their rights but also ensure that every patient is aware of those rights as a way of certifying that they receive quality care from their chosen health care providers henceforth (Edvardsson, Watt and Pearce, 2017)

References:

Carman, K.L. and Workman, T.A., 2017. Engaging patients and consumers in research evidence: applying the conceptual model of patient and family engagement. Patient education and counseling, 100(1), pp.25-29.

Meggetto, E., Ward, B. and Isaccs, A., 2018. What’s in a name? An overview of organisational health literacy terminology. Australian Health Review, 42(1), pp.21-30.

Edvardsson, D., Watt, E. and Pearce, F., 2017. Patient experiences of caring and person?centredness are associated with perceived nursing care quality. Journal of advanced nursing, 73(1), pp.217-227.

Haskell, H. and Lord, T., 2017. Patients and Families as Coproducers of Safe and Reliable Outcomes. In Surgical Patient Care (pp. 101-120). Springer, Cham.

Couët, N., Desroches, S., Robitaille, H., Vaillancourt, H., Leblanc, A., Turcotte, S., Elwyn, G. and Légaré, F., 2015. Assessments of the extent to which health?care providers involve patients in decision making: a systematic review of studies using the OPTION instrument. Health Expectations, 18(4), pp.542-561.

Snow, H.A. and Fleming, B.R., 2014. Consent, capacity and the right to say no. The Medical Journal of Australia, 201(8), pp.486-488.

Almoajel, A., 2013. Hospitalized Patients Awareness Of Their Rights. In Clute Inst. Int. Acad. Conf (pp. 124-127).

Khademi, M., Mohammadi, E. and Vanaki, Z., 2017. On the violation of hospitalized patients’ rights: A qualitative study. Nursing ethics, p.0969733017709334.