Question

You are the Chief Information Officer in an acute care medical center. After completing the reading and conducting further research on patients’ rights and health record requirements, create a policy to address patients’ rights in the facility. Include information on the health record.

Your policy should be one to two pages, and include the following:

Policy title

Version Number

Effective Date

Date Ratified

Ratified By

Introduction (Rationale for the policy)

Definition

Policy

General Guidelines

Answer 1

Policy title: Patients rights and responsibilities

Version number : 01-04/12/2018

Effective Date:01/01/2019

Date ratified: 15/12/2018

Ratified by: Mr XYZ

Introduction

The policy Is mandatory to safeguard the rights and responsibilities of patient as an individual. This would also lead to an improved health outcomes as patient needs are catered to deliver optimal health services. If the patient is well informed of what, where, how and why he would feel safe and guarded. This policy also enables that all patient are treated equally with no disparity in relation to caste, creed, gender or religion. The health care professional would know the mandates and everyone will follow the same guidelines.

Definition

Patient rights

It is the basic fundamental rights of an individual who is admitted or seeking health care facilities due to some ailments or other disease condition. Patient rights are concerned with the information that should be provided to a patient when he or she seeks medical advice if or not admitted to the hospital or seeking out patient services

Policy: The Patients are subjected to know everything that is going to happen to them in the course of treatment.

Important information can be kept in the patient record and following can be mentioned as

Patient has the right to know about the treating physician and his team

Patient has the right to know about his/her treatment.

Patient has the right to take a second opinion.

Patient has the right to know about his disease condition and the progress of his/ her condition

Patient has the right to say NO for the treatment at any point of time.

Patient can discontinue the treatment at any point of time.

Patient has the right to know about his payments and bills.

Patient has the right to keep his diagnosis as confidential if he doesnt wants to share this to his/ her family as well.

Patient has the right to know about any procedure or surgical intervention that needs to be done on him/ her.

General guidelines: All the health care personel should be well aware of the policy regarding Patients rights.

The patient should be treated nicely at all the time during his course of stay.

The policy should be implemented for all the patient whether in patient or out patients.

When meeting the patient for the first time, he/ she should be greeted pleasantly.

Also, introduce yourself and make the patient feel comfortable.

You can hand over the patient rights information brochure or explain the policy verbally.

Make sure all the patient is well versed with the policy of patient rights.

Document the any significant findings

Also, continuous training should be imparted to new joinees..