Ethical Case Studies

Consider the ethical dilemma the health care professional faces in the selected case study. Pay particular attention to details that will help you analyze the situation using the three components of the Ethical Decision Making Model (moral awareness, moral judgment, and ethical behavior).

Note: The case study may not supply all of the information you may need for the assignment. In such cases, you should consider a variety of possibilities and infer potential conclusions. However, please be sure to identify any speculations that you make.

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Open and Close Icon Reducing Hospital Readmissions

Caleb Powell was preparing the agenda for the upcoming executive leadership meeting and he shook his head ruefully. As chief executive officer for Virginia County Regional Hospital (VCRH), Caleb believes that a key piece of VCRH’s future success lies in reducing readmission rates, not only in the areas identified by federal guidelines, but across the board. A few weeks ago, he read a piece from the National Institutes of Health discussing strategies associated with reduction in readmission rates. He decided that he wanted to discuss the issue in detail with his leadership team.

Caleb’s goal is to align the hospital’s strategic planning with the goal of reducing readmissions. The stakes are high; under provisions of the Affordable Care Act, hospitals with higher than expected 30 day readmission rates for heart failure, heart attack and pneumonia are penalized with reduced payments. Historically, hospitals (including VCRH) have struggled to avoid the penalties, but Caleb believes that believes that a focused approach will allow them to be successful. He also believes that reducing readmission rates will improve patient satisfaction, which has become a key metric in measuring hospital quality.

Caleb’s initial research into this issue revealed that while many facilities were incurring the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) penalties, there was still significant variability in terms of hospitals implementing successful strategies for reducing their readmission rates. However, several themes have emerged. Hospitals that established partnerships with physicians, physician groups and other local hospitals have had greater success. In addition, a clear discharge planning process and nurse driven medication reconciliation have also been associated with reducing the risk of readmissions.

At the same time, Caleb is concerned that an aggressive policy to avoid readmissions could be construed as too focused on the hospital’s bottom line and indifferent to patient needs. The last thing he wants is to create a policy that prevents patients from seeking or receiving care. Caleb hopes that this meeting will begin a productive discussion around developing strategies to improve VCRH’s performance in this area.

Caleb’s email to the executive leadership team with the agenda for the meeting included the following note:

“As we research the readmission rate issue for improvement, we need to be aware that we cannot add additional days to the patient’s initial stay. It’s a balancing act. We also cannot hinder a patient from coming back into the hospital for a readmission. I’ll be asking for your input about whether we should create a system to profile health care providers whose patients have high readmission rates.”

Develop a solution to a specific ethical dilemma faced by a health care professional by applying ethical principles. Describe the issues and a possible solution in a 3-5 page paper.

For this assessment, you will develop a solution to a specific ethical dilemma faced by a health care professional. Read each portion of the assessment carefully and use the suggested resources to help you complete the assessment. This assessment provides an opportunity to consider ethical principles and how they can be applied in health care situations.

Part 1. EBP Research

Locate two research articles on the topic of your choice, but each article needs to use a different research method (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods). First, summarize both articles. Then answer the following questions…

• Which type of research article did you find easier to understand? Explain
• If you had to complete a research project which style would you choose and why?

This section should include 2 outside references and your book. This section should be at least 1000 words.

Part 2. Political Letter

Identify a current state or national healthcare or nursing issues that impact nurses or healthcare. Possible websites to locate an issue would be…

State Nursing Association

American Nursing Association

Specialized Professional Organizations

Once you have found your issue, write a letter to your governor, senator, or congress person. Your letter should be 500 words, in a block format and addresses should be included. Your first paragraph should state the issue. The second paragraph should state how the issue affects you personally as a nurse (avoid medical jargon). The third paragraph should state how the issue affects the community. Your fourth and final paragraph should restate the importance of the issue and thank the individual for their time and attention to the issue.

Your references for the letter should not be cited in your letter, but should be included on a separate reference page. 

Ministry of Health (MOH) Vision and Strategy 

For this assignment, you will write a research paper exploring the Ministry of Health’s vision and strategy to improve healthcare delivery for all citizens throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 

Choose three out of the four topics below:

1. Interoperable electronic health records,
2. Equitable care standards,
3. Quality and performance standards, or
4. Governance and accountability.

For each selected topic:

1. Provide an overview of the MOH vision and strategy for that topic.
2. Explain the importance of the topic and how it will improve healthcare quality and safety in Saudi Arabia.

Your well-written paper should meet the following requirements:

1. Four to five pages in length, not including the cover or reference pages.
2. Formatted per APA writing standards
3. Provide support for your work with in-text citations from a minimum of four scholarly articles. Two of these sources may be from the class readings, textbook, or lectures, but two must be external. 
4. Provide full APA references for the sources used, along with appropriate in-text citations.
5. Utilize headings to organize the content in your work ( introduction , the three topics chosen above then a final conclusion)
6. More citation through the text
7. No plagiarism
8. The references not more than 5 years ago

I want the article over Autism!! (the paper should answer a health question about Autism…address an issue) Please site articles & the page requirements are in instructions

PROJECT 2: GUIDELINES FOR RESEARCH PROPOSAL PROJECT Objective: to develop two chapters of a research proposal: 1) a literature review covering the topic, research questions, and a rationale statement, including a detailed literature review of your health question using scientific evidence, 2) a methods section. General guidelines: each student will choose a health topic with which to develop a literature review and will state that topic as a research question. This proposal is divided into two sections: Chapter 1: Literature Review, and Chapter 2: Methods. Each section has a separate due date. Both chapters will also have a peer-review. Each student is assigned to a group in the peer-review drop boxes. You will submit your chapter for a peer review on designated due date. You will then critique your other group members chapter and turn in to this same drop box by the designated due date. Finally, you will make all changes and submit your final project to a separate drop box as designated in the syllabus by specified due date. You will develop a research question(s) and search the peer-reviewed literature to help develop a research proposal from that information. You should have between 10 and 15 peer-reviewed articles to use in the paper. If you find less than 10, choose another question – if you find more than 15, that is fine. Chapter 1 is a comprehensive discussion of the literature found on your topic area. You will start with a brief introduction of the topic, research question, and a statement of the research objectives. Then you will provide a rationale using a detailed literature review. It should provide a unique and valuable reference resource for other scholars in your field. This section will be relatively short for a literature review(10 pages) and focused on the scientific studies of the question reported in the peer- reviewed literature. Articles from the popular media can only be used as background, i.e., to establish the interest in the question. This chapter should be a thorough review of the literature. This should include a good transition between the broad topic to narrower topics. This section should include comparison and contrast between articles that are conflicting. In some cases, you will have found no conflicting literature – that is fine, but be sure to state so in that section. At the end of this chapter you should have a summarization of why your research question is important enough to study – how is it unique? Tips: Your literature review will look a lot like the introductions of your journal articles. Find an article that is similar to yours and see how they moved/transitioned from paragraph to paragraph, topic to topic. The hardest thing for new researchers to do is the “flow” and organization of the paper.