Ethical Code of Conduct in Long-Term Care Facilities

Ethical Code of Conduct in Long-Term Care Facilities
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Introduction
The ethical code of conduct for long-term care facility provides guidelines and procedures for individuals working in these facilities on how to conduct themselves in the line of duty. Healthcare providers are expected to preserve the integrity and ethical standards for enhancement of care delivery. With this idea, the codes of conducts are established as the foundation for the business principles for long-term care facilities. Healthcare stakeholders right from the top management to the lowest level workers are mandated to ensure they adhere to the set codes of conducts and the work ethics in their profession. The discussion herein provides the ethical code of conducts as applied to long-term care facility among the facility governance, management, and professional staffs and how they are implemented for effective outcomes.
Healthcare facilities are characterized by different specialties and fields operated by different professionals. Among these sectors is the emergency room, which is considered to be critical. Any healthcare facility comprises doctors or healthcare providers, hospital premise, or the emergency room. Healthcare can, however, be viewed at a larger perspective with reference to treatment, prevention, and diagnosis of various diseases within the care premises. The professionals under these jurisdictions are categorized individuals involved in medicine, allied health, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, and chiropractic departments whose interactions enable improved care for patients. Different care organizations within the hospital premise mainly include surgery center, behavior health canter, long-term care facility, outpatient, and specialty hospital, among others (Darr, 2014). The different departments of the organizations have developed different codes of conducts and ethical considerations for the enhancement of services provided.
According to Berdetti and Moriarty (2017), institutional codes of conducts are established as a set of behavior standards addressing issues of concern for every stakeholder of that particular organization. The codes of conducts define the organizational expectations among the behaviors and practices of the employer, employees, and outside stakeholders, establishing a professional relationship between the service provider and the service beneficiaries. In the long-term care facility, professional codes of conducts are essential in the protection of medical and financial information regarding the employees and patients. The level of professionalism determines the difference in the code of ethics of different care facilities, service offered, information entailed, among other factors which are essential in healthcare systems. However, all healthcare systems are said to have almost similar codes of ethics as services offered aims at improving the health of the population and maintaining a healthy relationship among healthcare providers and with the patients.
As addressed herein, the long-term care facility involved addresses both medical and non-medical needs for patients chronic illnesses and disabilities in the United States. Among the involved patients in these facilities are also the elderly people who require special care either in the facilities or at their homes. Services provided in the long-term facility are more beyond those of a normal healthcare provider like in other healthcare departments. Providers in these facilities are for instance expected to conduct extra services to the patients like dressing, bathing, and also feeding the patients who may require a high level of professionalism, integrity, and goodwill for the benefit of the patients. The care providers are also expected to administer medicines and other medical cares essential for patients with chronic diseases (McKinney, 2017). Other long-term care facilities provide extended services for the patients and clients beyond the primary health care like provision of living quarters for patients. These enable care providers to enhance the provision of essential services and necessities like meals, housekeeping, and personal care. These scenarios are mainly common in nursing homes or home for the aged as the best long-term care facilities for the aged and patients with chronic illnesses in the United States.
In the United State, the number of aged people is increasing at a rate that is becoming unmanageable by the families and therefore ends up in the recommended facilities for the aged. According to the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services, the country is having about 12 million of both women and men with over 65 years, an age recommended to the homes for the aged. Such individuals require long-term care, which is challenging to access while they are at their homes. According to the stipulation of the US Department of Health can Human Services, 40 percent of the aged people are expected to stay in the established care facilities to enhance their care access and provision.
Organizational Structure
For the care of this population, the care facility has established an organizational structure which is much different from that of the other healthcare facilities. For the privately owned long-term care facilities for the aged, the organizational structure comprises of the owner of the facility or a person invested in the project, administrators, directors, specialists in clinical nursing and pharmacists, and the subordinate staffs. In the nursing department, there is a patient attendance or a physician, nursing practitioner, clinical nurse, and a pharmacist. On the other side, there is a director for nurses (DON), assistant DON, a nurse in charge of different shits, and supervisors for various units. There are also licensed practical nurse (LPN) working across all distributed shifts. He is also involved in the supervision of certified nursing assistants (Partison, 2017).
A long-term care facility for the aged will also have other skilled healthcare workers, including physical therapies, occupational therapies, podiatrists, and dentists, to care for the admitted patients or otherwise aged people. The running of the long-term care facility also involves other services and departments managed by various individuals like the business director, social worker, and the social service director, dietary supervisor, and housekeeping and maintenance manager. All these individuals are categorized with different duties and responsibilities for the enhancement of services provided in the facilities. The important duties of the facility involve planning, developing, supervising, monitoring, and maintaining effective care standards within the facility departments (Boulding, 2018). The major focused duties in the facility include those of the upper management, professional, and skilled staffs. Enhancement of appropriate management of this facility is achieved by ensuring effective communication and leadership skills, hiring responsible and qualified personnel as well as the establishment of principles and effective codes of ethics which facilitates the realization of the facility’s goals and objectives. The codes of ethics and differentiation of roles and responsibilities ensure that individuals remain in their line of profession and work hard to attain the projected results in the facility. For instance, skilled professional staffs are mandated to ensure that all the patients and clients are attended properly in a professional way for their satisfaction to create a good image of the facility while the long-term facility doctors ensure that patients are well examined and receive the appropriate treatment during their stay in the facility.
Encountered ethical dilemmas
Bardettin and Moriarty (2017) defined ethical dilemmas as situations involving moral and ethical conflict between practices which are considered to be right or wrong in society. In long-term care facilities, ethical dilemmas are experienced on a daily basis as the facilities are mainly involved in making critical decisions on issues regarding end of life care and considerations for the involved patients. Ethical dilemmas are therefore experienced in the ability of the stakeholders to make sound decisions, use of sedation, and hospitalization issues. The solution to an ethical dilemma is based on considering the person who is likely to receive the impact of the decision made as there is no single answer can be considered to be wrong or right. Sometimes, caregivers may be required to make decisions that break ethical norms through the contradiction of ethical values in finding a solution for ethical dilemmas (Pozgar, 2015).
Management and professional staffs in Long-term care facility are faced with different forms of ethical dilemmas. For example, medical staff may be confronted with special orders of DNR (Do-Not-Resuscitate)in a patient’s chart, which conflicts with views from the family members. This is a very common scenario if the long-term care facility especially for the patients with mild dementia with complex health conditions like shortness of breath, coughing and wheezing and the health condition is rapidly deteriorating t...