Home Health Care Ethical Issues

There exists an ethical and legal requirement to protect patient information and home care records, and home healthcare nurses have this responsibility along with health care institutions. Privacy and confidentiality are separate entities, and the protection of one does not necessarily mean the protection of the other. The right to privacy is embodied in the law. The First and Fourteenth Amendments to t

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for care provided in the last 30 days of a patient's life. In a survey of 1,400 doctors and nurses, it was found that 65 percent stated unnecessary treatment was provided to terminally ill patients. Living wills that block such unnecessary and unwanted last-minute procedures would result in substantial savings(Lindblom, 1997, 9). Polls and studies show that over two-thirds of Medicare patients would use a living will to reject heroic measures and standard forms of last-minute care; this would be nearly two-thirds of two million Medicare patients who die each year. In a study of five hospitals, the last-minute medical care costs for patients with near-death diagnoses who died in the hospital averaged about $10,400 per patient. It is estimated that in the final month of a patient's life the intensive care costs can surpass $100,000; total costs to Medicare for medical care to these patients in their last 30 days was approximately $20 billion in the fiscal year 1995 (Lindblom, 1995, 10-11). Congress could require all Medicare patients to have a living will that sets forth the kinds of treatments wanted when near death and unable to communicate clear instructions personally. Instead of being coerced into foregoing care, pati
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Cummings Cockerham, Amendments Constitution, NASW Code, Supreme Court, Davitt Kaye, Medicare Living, Hartman-Stein Henderson-Laribee, HIV Infection/AIDS, Wills Living, AIDS Kasper, health care, living wills, cockerham 1997, cummings cockerham, cummings cockerham 1997, human rights, home health, home health care, lindblom 1995, terminally ill, wesley 1996, public health, regarding end-of-life decisions, lindblom 1995 10, anonymous 1997 16,
Approximate Word count = 5045
Approximate Pages = 20 (250 words per page)

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