Ethical codes of conduct
Along with the rise of newer technologies and better service standards in healthcare, there is a corresponding rise in ethical dilemmas and in the challenges to tackle health issues with respect to intensifying complexity of the health problems (CDC, 2015). The ethical codes of conduct include the application of key ethical principles of public values and beliefs inherent to the core public service for the field level implementation of the healthcare industry (Thomas, Sage, Dillenberg & Guillory, 2002). The community health care centre where I have been practicing since last few months requires a rework on its prevalent code of ethics. The centre has some earlier incidents of ethical dilemmas like those of patient confidentiality, community’s consent on implemented services, and accessibility of healthcare services and resources to all the strata of the community. This paper aims at suggesting the three crucial ethical codes of conduct that should be implemented at my agency of practicum so as to improve its overall stance towards being more ethically sound in community healthcare services.
Suggested Ethical codes
The following three ethical codes are suggested for being implemented at my agency and the rationale corresponding to each is also mentioned along with it.
Community members should be welcome to contribute to the prevalent public discourse in the healthcare services for the community (Illinois Institute of Technology, 2002).
Rationale: The community should contribute towards the healthcare policies and offered services either through a legislature communicated via their representatives and should have a right to voice against those policies and practices which they feel inappropriate. Thus, the scope of the community getting alienated to the healthcare services can be mitigated by this.
The community healthcare services should profess and adopt the practices which promote the empowerment of less resourceful and disenfranchised segment of the community so that they have an equal access to the healthcare service and adequate resources (Chatterjee & Srinivasan, 2013).
Rationale: The conceptual framework of bioethics make it a mandatory course for all the healthcare services to implement the ethical principle of justice related to access to the services(Trotochaud, 2006).Thus, all the agencies of healthcare should ensure that adequate fairness and equitable allocation of health care related resources to all the segments of society, specifically those who are not as capable of affording or accessing them because of their social or economic status (Trotochaud, 2006).
The healthcare service provider should keep a patient’s health and treatment information to be extremely private and confidential and any disclosure of such information should not be made prior to an informed consent from the patient or his authorized family members (Bord, Burke & Dudzinski, 2013).
Rationale: The trust established between the patient and his medical service provider is an essential component which promotes the consequent faith developed for the beneficence practiced by the healthcare agencies for the community as a whole. Thus, all the agencies of healthcare should ensure that no breach of the patient confidentiality should ever occur with respect to the disclosure of his private records. In the case when a disclosure of the patient’s record is a must for the betterment of society or an individual, it is mandatory to have an informed consent from the patient or any of his authorized family members.
References
Borde, J., Burke,W. & Dudzinski, M. (2013). Ethics in medicine: confidentiality. University of Washington School of Medicine. Retrieved from https://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/confiden.html
CDC (2015). Public Health Ethics. Retrieved from http://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/node/4734
Chatterjee, C. & Srinivasan, V. (2013). Ethical issues in health care sector in India. IIMB Management review.Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0970389612001231
Illinois Institute of Technology (2002). Principles of the Ethical Practice of Public Health. Retrieved from http://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/node/4734
Thomas, J. Sage, M., Dillenberg, J. & Guillory, J. (2002). A Code of Ethics for Public Health. Am J Public Health: 1057–1059. Retrieved online from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447186/
Trotochaud, K. (2006). Ethical issues and access to healthcare. Retrieved from http://ethics.emory.edu/resources/Publication/PDFs/Ethical%20issues%20and%20access%20to%20healthcare.pdf
