Health Facility Ethical Code of Conduct



Table of Contents

Introduction3

Background of LifeCare Hospitals3

Organization structure of LifeCare Hospitals4

Ethical dilemmas5

Ethical standards6

General Statement6

Patient Confidentiality8

Breach of confidentiality8

Ethical care in psychotherapy9

Implementation of the ethical code of conduct9

Violation of the code of ethics10

Conclusion11

References12

Health Facility Ethical Code of Conduct

Introduction

Acute Care hospitals provide care for [patients who have had a severe industry or needs care for some long term illness. This acute care may even be provided if the patient is recovering from a surgery or has a very urgent medical condition. These may be understood as health care organizations opposite to those that provide chronic care. Lately, the United States of America has witnessed a demand and supply mismatch whereby the number of people requiring acute care has increased significantly whereas the number of acute care facilities has declined as the same time. This has put pressure on the emergency hospitals which have to provide acute care in addition to emergency care.

The paper discusses the ethical dilemmas faced by acute care facility and the code of conduct that should be followed. For this purpose the acute care facility has been selected is LifeCare Hospitals.

Background of LifeCare Hospitals

LifeCare Hospitals is one of the pioneer providers of long term acute care in the US. The organization is based on the philosophy that personalized treatment combined with aggressive interventions can maximize the chances of the patient's recovery. The facility and hospitals are based in Plano in Texas (LifeCare Hospitals, 2012). The unique proposition or competitive advantage of this hospital is not only the quality of care provided to these hospitals but also the fact that the hospital specializes in treatment for complex patients. These are patients who require long term acute care. The network of hospitals is operational in 27 locations across 10 states.

The organization has established a brand name for itself and is quite trusted when it comes to acute care facilities. It has many teams of professionals who provide multi-disciplinary services. These include physical medicine specialists, dietitians, nurses, radiologists, case managers and pharmacists.

Organization structure of LifeCare Hospitals

The organizational structure of LifeCare Hospitals is given as follows (LifeCare Hospitals, 2012):

The hierarchy of the LifeCare Hospitals is shown in the above diagram. In addition, there is a need to specify the kind of services that are being provided by the hospital. The hospital specialized in an array of fields. These include nursing, radiology, dietitian, specialized services for physical medicines, pharmacy and case managers.

The management and professional staff coordinate with each other in order to provide premium care.

Ethical dilemmas

The ethical dilemmas that is faced by LifeCare organization is the fact that acute care hospital industry is faced with skill shortage. In the midst of a situation where there is immense demand for acute care in the long run and very few acute care hospitals, the hospitals that are operational at the time are in a rush to increase their staff and capacity so that they can cater to most number of people at the same ...