NR 506 Week 2: Organizational Change and Ethical-Legal Influences in Advanced Practice Nursing Case Study
NR 506 Week 2: Organizational Change and Ethical-Legal Influences in Advanced Practice Nursing Case Study
The case study depicts Mrs. Smith, who comes for an annual physical exam with an empty bottle of amoxicillin and requests a refill. She had a refill a week ago, and the FNP’s name is indicated on the label as the prescriber. The patient mentioned that she had talked with Stephanie, the medical assistant. However, the medical assistant did not discuss it with the FNP or other NPs. This paper will discuss the ethical and legal implications for each member and how to prevent similar illegal behavior in the future.
Potential ethical and legal implications for each of the following practice members:
Medical assistant
All medical assistants must have some degree of physician supervision when prescribing medications. Some states also have limitations on the medications that medical assistants can prescribe (Figueroa Gray et al., 2021). The medical assistant faces legal implications for prescribing a drug without supervision from a physician or NP and writing another practitioner’s name when prescribing without their knowledge. Stephanie faces the risk of losing her practicing license or being fined if she prescribed a drug that is restricted for medical assistants.
Nurse Practitioner
An NP has an ethical duty in prescribing, selecting an appropriate medication, providing patients with information, warnings, and instructions about their medication, and monitoring the patient regularly. The NP may face ethical implications if the drug prescribed with the FNP’s name harms the patient. In prescribing, the NP has a moral duty to do good (beneficence) and avoid harm to the patient (nonmaleficence) (Vaismoradi et al., 2021). Thus, the NP may face fines or lose his license if the Amoxicillin causes adverse drug reactions.
Click here to ORDER an A++ paper from our Verified MASTERS and DOCTORATE WRITERS NR 506 Week 2: Organizational Change and Ethical-Legal Influences in Advanced Practice Nursing Case Study:
Medical Director
The medical director may also face ethical consequences for failing to ensure that employees in the organization adhere to their prescriptive duties. The director may face fines for failing to supervise the employees’ conduct when attending to patients. Besides, the director failed to ensure that medical assistants were working as per their scope of practice.
Practice
The practice risks facing legal actions for healthcare providers failing to adhere to their scope of practice when providing patient care. The practice may face ethical consequences for corporate negligence since providers prescribe patients medications without prescriptive authority and supervision (Vaismoradi et al., 2021). Legal consequences include fines, temporarily losing the operating license, or being closed permanently.
What strategies would you implement to prevent further episodes of potentially illegal behavior?
The first strategy will be to organize continuous medical education (CME) to educate the healthcare providers on their scope of practice. It will be crucial for each profession to fully understand their scope of practice and that of the other professions. In addition, I would develop a policy to guide the employees in the practices on the actions that will be taken if they do not adhere to their scope of practice.
What leadership qualities would you apply to effect a positive change in the practice?
The leadership qualities that I will apply to create positive change in the practice include communication, coaching, and decision-making. Communication is a vital leadership skill of conveying information to individuals in a manner they can understand and also involves listening to employees (Walk, 2023). Coaching is the ability of the leader to guide others to improve. I would apply coaching skills to empower the employees and improve their engagement and accountability in patient care. Furthermore, I will need to employ strong decision-making skills that entail evaluating options, assessing the advantages of each, and committing to the option that can provide the most value to patients, providers, and practice.
NR 506 Week 2: Organizational Change and Ethical-Legal Influences in Advanced Practice Nursing Case Study References
Figueroa Gray, M., Coleman, K., Walsh-Bailey, C., Girard, S., & Lozano, P. (2021). An Expanded Role for the Medical Assistant in Primary Care: Evaluating a Training Pilot. The Permanente journal, 25, 20.091. https://doi.org/10.7812/TPP/20.091
Vaismoradi, M., Jordan, S., Logan, P. A., Amaniyan, S., & Glarcher, M. (2021). A Systematic Review of the Legal Considerations Surrounding Medicines Management. Medicine (Kaunas, Lithuania), 57(1), 65. https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina57010065
Walk, M. (2023). Leaders as change executors: the impact of leader attitudes to change and change-specific support on followers. European Management Journal, 41(1), 154-163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2022.01.002