NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

Prescription of drugs is a process that requires careful consideration of various aspects to ensure optimum outcome and reduce the occurrence of incidences. Legal standards are imperative in ensuring healthcare practitioners understand what they cannot do, while ethical standards are significant in outlining right and wrong. To ensure a reduced occurrence of medication errors and incidences, legal frameworks are implemented and policies that ensure the same through a reporting system (Pauline Hood, 2020). This case scenario involves the prescription of expensive drugs to a patient who recently mentioned their financial difficulties. NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER NOW

According to the World Health Organization, rational prescribing requires the patient to receive the appropriate medication in doses that meet their specific requirements for an adequate period of time and at an affordable cost (Britain, 2002). A nurse practitioner’s ethical role is to rationally utilize resources to ensure that ineffective costs are avoided during prescription.

Write a 2- to 3-page paper that addresses the following:

• Explain the ethical and legal implications of the scenario you selected on all stakeholders involved, such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and patient’s family.
• Describe strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure as identified in the scenario you selected. Be sure to reference laws specific to your state.
• Explain two strategies that you, as an advanced practice nurse, would use to guide your decision making in this scenario, including whether you would disclose your error. Be sure to justify your explanation. NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs
• Explain the process of writing prescriptions, including strategies to minimize medication errors.

Ethical and Legal Implications

            This scenario is more inclined to ethical consideration of medication prescribing. Pharmacoeconomics involves the consideration of the cost of medication to the healthcare system and society. Prescription of relatively expensive medications that are not necessary for the patient’s recovery is unethical of the nurse practitioner. The ethical prescription of medication involves rational consideration of the cost of the medication and the efficacy of the medication to the specific requirements of the patient (Pauline Hood, 2020). NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

Prescription of such expensive drugs is only ethical when the medication is necessary to recover the patient. In such instances, the nurse practitioner should be able to rationally handle the situation and explain the importance of the medication to the patient (Pozgar, 2020). Prescribing expensive medications may cause health insurance companies to dispute covering the expenses and deny the patient the right to medication.

The Stakeholders

The patients and their families rely of the health care practitioner to offer them the best services at an affordable price. In a scenario whereby the patient is prescribed for expensive medicine, it’s the patient and the family who face the challenge of getting the medication and adhering to treatment. Hence, the nurse practitioner and other prescribers have the responsibility of allowing the patient to acquire medications and hence treatment with ease (Pauline Hood, 2020).

The pharmacist is also a stakeholder in the rational prescription of and administration of medications. In such a scenario like this, the pharmacist plays a significant role in ensuring the patient receives social justice by safeguarding the patient’s economic concerns. The pharmacist has the role of consulting with the prescriber on the necessity of an overpriced medication as well as with the insurance company to explain the necessity of such medications to address the patient’s economic needs before dispensing the medication (Robert Veatch, 2010). NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

Resolving the Issue

            Handling ethical issues and dilemmas is an additive quality of a competent nurse practitioner. A good nurse practitioner should be accountable for all the daily operations and take responsibility for all the actions that he/she has done in the line of duty (Pozgar, 2020). Addressing this scenario requires immediate efforts to contact the patient or the family and inquire about compliance with the prescribed medication. NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

Upon the realization of noncompliance to the medication due to financial constraints, disclosure of the scenario is advised to implement effective strategies that will ensure the patient receives treatment as early as possible. The nurse practitioner can then carry out the cost- benefit analysis and prescribe a relatively cheaper medication that can attain a similar therapeutic outcome, such as generic substitutes.  The nurse practitioner can also make efforts to research and connect the patient with government organizations and programs that offer financial aid to such populations by paying for the medications of reducing the cost. This is important in ensuring a long-term solution to the challenge since the programs may always provide financial aid to the patient in such scenarios, ensuring patient advocacy ((U.S.), 2001). NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

Process of writing prescriptions and strategies to minimize medication errors.

Writing a prescription is a process that requires the nurse practitioner to follow specific guidelines to ensure rational healthcare provision. The World Health Organization suggests the following multistep approach of ethical prescribing: The healthcare provider should first evaluate the patient’s problem and give a definite description. The health care practitioner should then determine drug therapy’s therapeutic objective before selecting the appropriate medication for the given case. The healthcare provider should then educate the patient on important information, contraindications, and medication instructions. NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs. The health care provider should monitor the patient’s response to medication regularly and consider the cost-benefit ratio during prescription.

Minimizing medication errors requires the nurses to employ the five rights during medication prescribing and administration. The rights include administering medication to the right patient, using the right route, the right drug, the right dose, and at the right time. The nurse has an additional responsibility of completing accurate documentation upon administration of the medication (Health, 2002) NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs.

Conclusion.

The achievement of quality of life in patients depends on rational prescribing of medications and the implementation of rational measures to prevent medication errors. Hence, the nurse practitioner is responsible for the achievement of rational healthcare provision through following ethical and legal principles during practice. NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs.

References

(U.S.), N. B. (2001). Journal of National Black Nurses’ Association:. The Association.

Britain, R. P. (2002). Medicines, Ethics, and Practice: A Guide for Pharmacists,. Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

Health, U. S. (2002). Reducing medical errors: a review of innovative strategies to improve patient safety : hearing before the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, second session, May 8, 2002, . U.S. Government Printing Office.

Pauline Hood, E. K. (2020). Understanding Pharmacology in Nursing Practice. Springer Nature.

Pozgar, G. D. (2020). Legal and Ethical Essentials of Health Care Administration. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Robert Veatch, A. H. (2010). Case Studies in Pharmacy Ethics. Oxford University Press. NURS 6521 Week 1 Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs