NURS 6521 week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

Drug administration error causes some of the fatal medical accidents that could result in a patient’s death. Policies and legal frameworks exist to reduce the occurrence of such incidences, and other medical errors, through a reporting system. The case scenario involves prescribing medication to a child using the elderly patients’ standards. NURS 6521 week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs Several people are often affected and implicated in the chain of the wrong subscription, and it is the patient that is profoundly affected.

Ethical and legal implications for all involved stakeholders

The prescriber occupies the first position in the chain of events involving the administration of medication prescribed according to the standard of an elderly patient. The mistake begins with the prescriber. The error is ethically and legally unjustified. First, the prescriber is fully aware that the patient is a child. Prescribing drugs for a child according to the standard elderly patient places the child at risk of overdoes and exposes the patient to a legal suit. The pharmacist is also liable for compounding the prescriber’s mistake. The pharmacists should have an interest in the patient receiving the medications. It is fundamental to ask and confirm the demographic features of the patient, such as age before prescribing drugs. The patient and the patient’s family have not worked against any ethical or legal principle. Patients trust their physicians and take medications believing the physician to be accurate. They are not professionals. Therefore, the prescriber and the pharmacists are ethical and legally guilty of the wrong prescription NURS 6521 week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs.

Strategies to Address Disclosure and Nondisclosure

Medical practitioners recognize the occurrence of medical errors within the profession. The health institutions, states, and federal governments have established procedures to prevent medical errors and reporting and response channels. The state of Texas did not have an elaborate disclosure system until June 20, 2003, when the state government enacted into law legislation HB 1614 (Quality and patient safety, n.d). The enactment is unique to the needs of Texas despite having subtle similarities with other level legislations. The essential component of the law is the requirement that practitioners at the mental hospitals, hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers enter a detailed entry of medical errors.

The benefits of the strategy are its ability to increase surveillance on practitioners making frequent errors, and the intensity of the mistakes to take legal actions. It could be adopted to detect and punish practitioners responsible for rampant negligence and other mistakes. The strategy could also reveal quack practitioners who have entered the profession without prerequisite qualifications, under-training, or quasi practitioners. The health care sector needs to emphasize the recording of medical errors and the implementation of legal frameworks to deal with cases at the court levels and to underscore the seriousness with which medical errors are treated. The strategy would improve the practitioner’s attention and minimize deaths and other drug reactions detrimental to the patient’s health.

Strategies for Decision Making In This Scenario and Disclose of Error

The principles of integrity and honesty govern the response to the situation. The two principles determine how one relates to professional ethics and the codes of conduct. Therefore, using professional codes and professional ethics are the two key strategies to respond to the scenario. For instance, ethical principles such as Kantian deontology defines ethics or morality as action based on the rule of law regardless of the consequences to the actor and recipient of the work (Barrow  & Khandhar, 2019). In this case, state law requires reporting the scenario. I would file a report of the medical error per the ethical principles. The code of conduct defines how the doctor should relate to the patient. For instance, implementing the code of doing well under all circumstances, responding to the scenario would require entering a report and fast-tracking the child to ensure the threat is managed NURS 6521 week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs.

The Process of Writing Prescriptions

The practitioner and the pharmacist should consider the laboratory reports and consideration of the patient’s demographic features before prescribing drugs. Analyses of these variables inform the dosage and type of drug the prescriber gives to the patient. Also, there is a need for reexamining the prescription to ensure it meets the patient’s needs. The practitioner should accept faults in cases they lack knowledge or experience on the prescription. Doing so would limit drug errors resulting from ego.

References

Barrow, J. M., & Khandhar, P. B. (2019). Deontology. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing.

Quality and Patient Safety. (n.d). Public and Private Policy Medical Errors and Patient Safety. Retrieved from http://www.qups.org/med_errors.php?c=individual_state&s=44&t=all

Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

As an advanced practice nurse prescribing drugs, you are held accountable for people’s lives every day. Patients and their families will often place trust in you because of your position. With this trust comes power and responsibility, as well as an ethical and legal obligation to “do no harm.” It is important that you are aware of current professional, legal, and ethical standards for advanced practice nurses with prescriptive authority. Additionally, it is important to ensure that the treatment plans and administration/prescribing of drugs is in accordance with the regulations of the state in which you practice. Understanding how these regulations may affect the prescribing of certain drugs in different states may have a significant impact on your patient’s treatment plan. In this Assignment, you explore ethical and legal implications of scenarios and consider how to appropriately respond.

To Prepare

• Review the Resources for this module and consider the legal and ethical implications of prescribing prescription drugs, disclosure, and nondisclosure.
• Review the scenario assigned by your Instructor for this Assignment.
• Search specific laws and standards for prescribing prescription drugs and for addressing medication errors for your state or region, and reflect on these as you review the scenario assigned by your Instructor.
• Consider the ethical and legal implications of the scenario for all stakeholders involved, such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and patient’s family. NURS 6521 week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs
• Think about two strategies that you, as an advanced practice nurse, would use to guide your ethically and legally responsible decision-making in this scenario, including whether you would disclose any medication errors.

By Day 7 of Week 1

Write a 2- to 3-page paper that addresses the following:

• Explain the ethical and legal implications of the scenario you selected on all stakeholders involved, such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and patient’s family.
• Describe strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure as identified in the scenario you selected. Be sure to reference laws specific to your state.
• Explain two strategies that you, as an advanced practice nurse, would use to guide your decision making in this scenario, including whether you would disclose your error. Be sure to justify your explanation.
• Explain the process of writing prescriptions, including strategies to minimize medication errors.

Reminder: The School of Nursing requires that all papers submitted include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. The School of Nursing Writing Template with Instructions provided at the Walden Writing Center offers an example of those required elements (available at https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/templates/general#s-lg-box-20293632). All papers submitted must use this formatting.

Submission and Grading Information

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