Health Care Ethics, Health Care Systems, and Pain Management

Topic Overview

A close-up of a hospital sign Description automatically generated

Health care in the United States is often described as state-of-the-art, but the current health care system is far from perfect. Why does it sometimes take months to see a specialist if an individual has an Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)? Why are some claims routinely denied by health care companies? If you became a medical patient, would you know how to protect your rights and maximize your healthcare experience? Would you know your options for managing pain, thus improving your hospital stay and recovery? Would you know how to maximize your adherence to your provider�s treatment plan? In this learning topic, you will explore the current healthcare system and its most common ethical issues. You will also learn about ways to cope with hospitalization and medical treatment and strategies for optimizing success after medical treatment.

Topic Outcomes

Upon completion of this Learning Topic, you should be able to:

· Explain the factors in health care systems that affect patient adherence.

· Analyze the primary ethical issues in healthcare.

· Compare and contrast strategies for coping with hospitalization.

· Describe the causes of and treatments for clinical pain.

Readings and Research

Read the chapter on Health Care Settings and Pain Management (chapter 14) in your textbook.

Review the following article (you can find this article through the Regis University Library database:

Ulrich, C.M., Taylor, M.C., Soeken, K., O’Donnell, P., Farrar, A., Danis, M., & Grady, C. (2010). Everyday ethics: Ethical issues and stress in nursing practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing 66 (11), 2510-2519.

Culturally aware

Communication in health care

Pain e-book

Placebo NCCIH

NIH video on brain and pain

· Review the following websites

· NCBC ethics

· CHS ethical religious directives

VA ETHICS POLICY

VA Ethics and Pandemic

ASSIGNMENT WEEK 7

Week 7: Project: Communicating with Your Health Care Providers: Due Sunday

Context: Patients and health care providers (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists and counselors) have an interesting and complex relationship. Like any human relationship, the way that we interact with one another can have a tremendous impact on the outcomes of our relationship. In the case of health care, that outcome can directly affect our quality of life even, in fact, our mortality. Given the serious potential consequences of these interactions, it is a good idea to know as much as you can as a patient about factors that affect this relationship (including many within, but also many outside of) your control. If you work as a health care provider, better knowledge of good methods for communicating with your patients can play a large role in their health outcomes.

Task Description: This is a creative project, designed to help you learn about the patient-provider relationship. You will create a flyer or info-graphic about the challenges to communication between patients and providers, and the “best practices” of communication between patients and providers. Your goal is to educate a specific population of people of your choice (be specific on the target population like age, ethnicity, etc) on what they can do to communicate better with their HCPs. Be sure to include information culturally-specific to your population.

Essay Mill