Catalano’s Ethical Decision Making Algorithm, Essay Example

Ethical dilemmas occasionally occur during my experience as a nurse, and a majority of these problems occur when mistakes have been made in practice and nurses are unwilling to report these errors because they are afraid that they will be reprimanded or fired for these mistakes. Ultimately, this is detrimental to the nursing practice as a whole, because nurses have an ethical responsibility towards their patients and must provide them with the best possible care. A failure to report these errors results in the reduction of this possibility and can occasionally cause the patient physical harm. An example of this is when a nurse read a patient file incorrectly and provided them with the wrong dose of medication through IV. While I eventually found out about this situation, the nurse did not report this error immediately after making it, which contributed to an inability for the patient’s health to be reexamined as a consequence. Fortunately, the patient did not respond negatively to the changed dose, but in some situations this mistake could have resulted in health impairment.

Using Catalano’s ethical decision making algorithm, the client had no decision making capability with regards to this error or with regards to its resolution. The client was unable to understand the information presented to him, although he did understand that a mistake had occurred. Furthermore, he was not able to understand the treatment methods for resolving this problem. His guardians and family members were also not able to understand the care decisions that needed to be made, so these care decisions fell to the responsibility of the health care professional. Another nurse needed to take over for this case in order to ensure that mistakes were not made in the future, and fortunately, the client didn’t decide to pursue any legal claims for this error.

Ultimately, it is was the hospital’s responsibility to ensure that the individual charged to this patient’s care was changed to avoid any mistakes from taking place. Furthermore, it would be reasonable to write the nurse up for this failure to communicate this mistake. In addition, the nurse would benefit from being retrained on the electronic health system, as the error she made was primarily due to reading the record incorrectly. While there aren’t many resolution options available, this problem demonstrates the need to determine who is liable for mistakes in these cases. Since the hospital has employed the nurse who made the error, it is important for them to do everything in their power to ensure that a similar mistake does not occur in the future.

The problem was resolved by giving the nurse a warning and requiring her to go through the electronic health record training program once more. The hospital administration informed her that a similar mistake in the future would lead to her dismissal, so it is important for her to take extra care with regards to her actions in patient care. Ultimately, this case demonstrates that while mistakes happen in the health care setting, these errors must be reported in order to avoid patient detriment. Since the nurse did not report this error to her supervisor, even though she had later recognized this mistake, she was provided with disciplinary action because she was not acting according to code and her mistake could have drastically harmed the patient.

References

ANA. (n.d.). Nursing World. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/

Blais, K., & Hayes, J. (2011).  Professional nursing practice, concepts and perspectives.6th Edition.  New Jersey:  Pearson Education.