Patient Rights, Ethics, & Laws

The best defenses against a lawsuit for a healthcare worker is:

• Only working in large facilities where you will be unnoticed

• Carry individual professional liability insurance

• Promote a positive relationship with the patient

The belief that all patients should be treated as individuals reflects which ethical principle?

• Autonomy

• Nonmaleficence

• Respect for people

The belief that all patients have the right to healthcare interventions regardless of their race, religion, or gender reflects the ethical principle:

• Justice

• Autonomy

• Beneficence

A healthcare worker receives an MRI report and places it on the bottom of a stack of charts he is working on. He carries his stack to the workroom while he is on break. When he gets back to the nurse's station, he realizes the MRI report is missing from his stack. A little while later a visitor turns the report into the front desk at the hospital after finding the MRI report on the ground. The healthcare worker _____________.

• May have breached the Patient Self-Determination Act

• Is guilty of criminal misconduct

• Has violated the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act of 1996

A newly certified healthcare worker is assigned a patient that needs to be catheterized, but the healthcare worker has never performed this procedure. What would be the best action for them to take?

• Promptly notify the staff development office that an instructor needs to do this procedure.

• Contact the nursing supervisor and tell them that you do not have the experience needed to perform the procedure and ask for a more experienced worker to perform the procedure until you have been properly trained

• You are certified so you need to perform the procedure.

A student training to become a healthcare worker is talking to a patient, the patient suddenly stops breathing and becomes unresponsive. There is no DNR on file. What should the student do first?

• Call the nursing instructor and write an incident report

• Call for help and initiate CPR

• Call the Rapid Response Team and get the crash cart

In which case it a healthcare worker most likely to be charged with malpractice?

• The healthcare worker explains the policies regarding the use of restraints and side rails to the family members of a patient and obtain consent to use side rails. Later patient climbs over the side rail and falls fracturing their hip.

• The family of a patient wants the health care provider to be called at 12:00 PM because they think something is not right. The nurse doesn't call the provider until 5:00 PM, but the patient was unharmed.

• A patient is very demanding and hateful, so the healthcare worker ignores their call bell; the patient sustains tissue damage at the IV site

Which unaccompanied minor will require parental consent prior to treatment?

• A 17-year-old needing a prescription for insulin

• A 14-year-old who was sexually assaulted by a family member

• A 16-year-old that is independent and self-supporting needing birth control

Being responsible for one's actions

• Accountability

• Breach of Duty

• Beneficence

Professional Negligence best defines:

• Malpractice

• Harm

• Injury