NURS 510 Week 5 Discussion 1

Select a state or federal law or regulation related to patient safety that has been implemented within the last five years requiring hospitals or any other health care organizations to change the way they manage the delivery of care. Discuss the changes that have occurred because of this law or regulation.

Additionally, discuss the technology associated with either your selected law/regulation or a similar one. Are there ethical dilemmas that have resulted from technology changes when delivering care to patients or patient safety? Explain the dilemmas and how they might be resolved.

Solution

The U.S government regards health as a human right; thus, it has a national health insurance scheme that acts as a third-party reimbursement service (Austin & Wetle, 2018). In addition, the government ensures that all patients receive quality and safe patient care. Therefore, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has rules and legislations governing the reimbursement of events that occur due to hospital staff negligence to enhance patient safety and quality of patient care. Hospital staff’s negligence leads to ‘never events,’ which can lead to complications and increased cost of medication; however, through the new legislation, the CMS does not pay such charges because they regard them as preventable (Clayton & Miller, 2018). In 2019, the National Quality Forum produced a list of “never events” events to the new CMS rules and regulations; thus, it does not attract reimbursement.

The events include surgery on the wrong body part, surgery performed on the wrong patient, wrong surgical procedures, foreign objects retained in the body after surgery, air embolism, blood incompatibility, patient falls, and trauma. Therefore, if a patient suffers from the never events, the CMS’s third-party reimbursement service will not settle the hospital bill (Patient Safety Primer, 2019). Consequently, the CMS considers the events as results of nurse negligence; hence, the nurses should be responsible for the costs. The legislation on never events has ensured that the nurses and the healthcare officers are responsible and accountable for their actions, thus, improving the provision of quality healthcare services to patients. The legislation on never events uses electronic health record systems to store the patients’ information; therefore, the health care providers should take advantage of the important patient information.

References

Austin, A., & Wetle, V. (2018). The United States Health Care System: Combining Business, Health, and Delivery (3rd ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.

Clayton, J. L., & Miller, K. J. (2018). Professional and regulatory infection control guidelines: collaboration to promote patient safety. Aorn Journal, 106(3), 201-210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aorn.2017.07.005Links to an external site.

Patient Safety Primer. (2019). Never Events | PSNet. https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primer/never-events

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