Ethical and legal implications of medication error disclosure in nursing practice

¶ … nursing practice as well as the legalities and ethics that surround disclosure of medication errors.

You are a nurse undertaking advanced practice at a local medical clinic. You give a wrong prescription to your patient (Instructions Given by Customer). You think your patient will not find out about the mistake, and this was a genuine mistake.

Ethical and Legal Implications of Disclosure/Nondisclosure and Kentucky Laws

If a mistake or error is committed, the most frequent confusion by nurses and doctors is whether or not they should conceal or disclose the issue to their patients. Studies have shown that patients make sure they find out about any mistake that may have harmed them. The patient's rights require that such information is fully disclosed. Many studies show that patients say that being informed of such errors may build trust between them and their medical practitioners, and they would be sure of getting all the information regarding their health care in general (Ghazal, et.al, 2014). Furthermore, patients surprisingly seemed to believe that no man was perfect, that errors can be done and that the nature of human beings may make medical care practitioners conceal mistakes from their patients. Experts in medical care need to work towards being honest and disclosing clinical mistakes. Disclosure helps improve the trust of patients in doctors and health care. The research indicates disclosure of mistakes has lowered the possibility of court cases on doctors or hospitals. Doctors also agree that disclosure of mistakes against failure to disclose. However, some doctors are against full disclosure of mistakes to their patients. Some doctors are also of the idea that there is no point in telling a patient something they haven't asked about. Nonetheless, the issue brings about ethical confusion, which needs to be resolved by sufficient ethical models and frameworks. The laws of Kentucky state that it is illegal for nurses' employers, nurses or anyone who knows about the facts to avoid telling the board about a nurse that is suspected of defying the privacy of data or knowledge regarding patients apart from authorized personnel or anyone that is needed by law. This also excludes people that are suspected to have given false information or have acted with negligence and made wrong entries or left out important details on important records (Unlawful acts relating to nursing).

NURSE PRACTICE/MEDICATION ERRORS 3

Your physician prescribes a drug for you in the office, either in writing or by electronically sending the prescription to your chemist. This chemist could be in the doctor's office, retail or mail-order. Automated prescriptions are effective in reducing mistakes in medication. The suffering that comes up due to faulty prescriptions can be lowered and health care can be improved by decreasing mistakes in drug administration and dispensing. Computerized consultation can be of important benefits since they guide optimal dosage prescriptions (Velo and Minuz, 2009). Complete interventions that help enhance the safety of patients through a systematic plan are growing in various institutions, where utilization of similar charts for medication, on which all significant medical information is exposed together with the given prescriptions, in order for transcription to be prohibited. Education of junior doctors and medical students is highly recommended. Feedback control and training of medical instructions by senior doctors and tutors need to be linked with accessibility of internet references for instant identification as well as verification of any potential prescribing mistakes.