NR 341 CHAPTERS 1-5:

CHAPTERS 1-5: Informed Consent: The doctrine of informed consent is based on the principle of autonomy; competent adults have the right to self-determination or to make decisions regarding their acceptance or rejection of treatment. 1. 3 primary elements: Must be present for a person’s consent or decline of medical treatment or research participation to be consider valid. a. Competence = A person’s ability to understand info regarding medical and nursing Tx. b. Voluntariness c. Disclosure of information 2. Basic Info considered necessary for decision making a. A diagnosis of the pt’s specific health problem and condition b. The nature, duration, and purpose of the proposed tx and procedures c. The probable outcome of any medical or nursing intervention d. The benefits of medical or nursing intervention e. The potential risks that are generally considered common or hazardous f. Alternative tx and their feasibility g. Short term and long-term prognoses if the proposed tx or txs are not provided. 3. Nurses can serve as witnesses and provided additional pt edu to support decision making. National Patient Safety Goals 1) Identify patients correctly a) Use 2 ways to ID patient 2) Improve staff communication a) Get important test results to the right staff person on time. 3) Use medicines safely a) Label all MEDS and containers, take extra care of pt with blood thinners, and reconcile MEDS 4) Use alarms safely a) Ensure the alarms are audible and respond to them in a timely matter. 5) Prevent infection a) Use the hand cleaning guidelines b) Implement evidence based guidelines to prevent i) Infection with multidrug resistant organisms ii) Central line associated bloodstream infections iii) Surgical site infections iv) Catheter associated urinary tract infection 6) Identify patient safely risks a) Assess pt for suicide risk 7) Prevent mistakes in surgery a) Conduct a preprocedure verification process to ensure that surgery is done on the correct pt and site. b) Mark correct procedure site c) Preform a “time out” before the procedure to ensure that the correct pt, site, and procedure are identified. Ethical Principles Autonomy: Respect for the individual and the ability of individuals to make decisions with regard to their own health and future (the basis for the practice of informed consent) Beneficence: Actions intended to benefit the patients or others Nonmaleficence: Actions intended not to harm or bring harm to others Justice: Being fair or just to the wider community in terms of the consequences of an action. In health care, justice is described as the fair allocation or distribution of health care resources Veracity: The obligation to tell the truth Fidelity: The moral duty to be faithful to the commitments that one makes to others. (e.g. Promises) Confidentiality: Respect for an individual’s autonomy and the right of individuals to control the information relating to their own health