The Big City Primary Care Md. Group Satellite Facility.
Opening up a satellite facility in Little Town needs several considerations. Some topics, such as licensure of the medical facility, need to address before commencing the plan. This process ensures there are quality services and growth in health services. Licensure is the process in which the governmental entity permits the health facility to operate—some of the issues that Big City Primary Care Md. Groups may face include not meeting the required standards and abilities. The Big City Primary Care Md. The group must ensure they meet all set standards and can handle the common issues. Failure to provide a safe environment is regarded as neglect (Matthews, 2001). Considering the medical facility to be constructed in Little Town is a small facility, it may lack enough supplies sufficient for the 8,000 people. Some of the possible inadequate supplies include beds, linen, and laboratory equipment. Other issues that may affect the licensure of the facility include an inability to handle waste and controlling hazards such as fire and infections in the area (Rooney, & Van Ostenberg, 1999).
Medical liability can be termed as regulation by litigation. This issue can affect an organization’s functionality in many ways (Sage, 2003). Medical liability results in lawsuits against the facility due to a lack of quality care. A patient could sue the medical facility for negligence, lack of quality care, errors in practice, injuries sustained, among others. These issues connect liability to quality. Therefore, The Big City Primary Care Md. Group has to ensure it meets the set standards, and also errors are avoided as much as possible. In this case, too, the facility needs to be insured against such claims. Therefore, the facility will not be financially disabled when they compensate the patient. This precaution is not a necessity, but it can lead to the closure of such a small facility if the issue is not taken care of.
Supervision issues could also arise in the facility considering its size and the number of employees. For successful functioning health facilities, supervision is essential but not a necessity. However, from research carried out in the past, it is clear that supervised personnel in local health facilities perform better than those without any supervision. The Big City Primary Care Md. The group health organization is only planning to open up a satellite facility with very few personnel to cover the 8,000 population. Therefore this means that the medical facility will be overwhelmed and hence likely to put all hands on deck. In so doing, the employees will lack supervision as those in charge will have been assigned essential duties to attend to. The facility should consider adding more employees to the facility or add part-time staff from the main facility to assist the current full-time staff assigned to Little Town medical facility (Field, & Brown, 2019). According to medical policies, the junior team must be supervised by their seniors to ensure quality care. In the Little Town satellite medical facility staff lack supervision. They might end up delivering low-quality services. Also, little attention is likely to be given to a patient or a situation.
Another issue likely to face the Little Town medical facility is risk management between the facility in Big Town and Little town facilities. Telephone coverage will have to be recorded differently and then compiled, unlike before, where all this was done in the same facility. Also, the satellite staff is likely to feel out of touch from their previous place of work. Medical records are also an issue of concern where the satellite facility in Little Town will have to manage their files before then taking the documents to the main facility in Big Town facility. The best approach is to make the process electronic, and any changes in records are also updated automatically in the main centre. Therefore, any miscommunication among personnel should be avoided to ensure all no life is put at risk (Matthews, 2001). Using the electronic process will ensure patient records are not omitted when recording or transferring the files to the original documents in Big Town. Also, a lot of time would be wasted moving the records from the satellite facility, which is 150 miles away.
The medical board needs to be ready to face any issue that comes up during the transition when opening up of the satellite facility. Therefore a projection of the matter needs to be discussed expansively by the board. Failure to anticipate some of these challenges will fail the project. Some of the issues include lack of quality health services and negligence of patients due to inadequate personnel. Therefore, the medical board needs to be adequately prepared to handle such issues (Angus & Bégin, 2000).
2.
Facts
The doctor conducts the operation drunk and accidentally hits an artery. This incident results in significant bleeding on the baby and the mother, which eventually causes the death of Rosa and the baby. The nurses failed to report Dr Shell’s habit of coming to work drunk.
Legal Issue
The two nurses, June and Alice, must report or prevent the doctor from conducting the operation when drunk because his hands were visibly shaken. Dr Shell also had a duty to give his patients quality care, especially during services. In the Hospital rules, a doctor is prohibited from drinking alcohol at work or reporting to duty while drunk.
Decision
Dr Shell and the nurses on duty to Rosa and other patients of quality healthcare services. The pilot and the Big City Primary Care Md. Groups also owe patients more concern and twenty-four-hour availability as a policy of their operation. The satellite medical facility and its staff owes its patients quality procedures and following proper protocol.
Support
In the Goff case, the hospital was held responsible for the patient’s negligence during childbirth. They were well aware of the impending consequences if the patient was left unattended and bleeding. Both the nurses and the medical practitioner were well aware that they could endanger the patient’s life and still carried out the procedure (Pozgar & Santucci, 2016). As a result, the nurses were held responsible for the situation as they would have prevented the situation and saved the patient’s life. This case is similar to Dr Shell’s case, which suggests that the nurses had the chance to save the patient’s life by reporting the doctor’s incompetency beforehand. However, they decided to keep quiet, and hence they were equally responsible for Rosa and the baby’s death. Thus the hospital will also be held accountable for its incompetent staff.
Reference
Matthews, M. (2001). The nurse and the legal system. Nursing practice and the law: avoiding malpractice and other legal risks, 42-57. https://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=423284&Journal_ID=54030&Issue_ID=423107#P162
Pozgar, G. D., & Santucci, N. M. (2016). Legal aspects of health care administration. Jones & Bartlett Publisher
Sage, W. M. (2003). Medical liability and patient safety. Health Affairs, 22(4), 26-36.
Rooney, A. L., & Van Ostenberg, P. R. (1999). Licensure, accreditation, and certification: approaches to health services quality. Center for Human Services, Quality Assurance Project.
Field, R., & Brown, K. (2019). Effective leadership, management and supervision in health and social care. Learning Matters.
Letzt, A., Lefkowtz, J. P., & Kaseman, D. F. (2010). U.S. Patent No. 7,664,657. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Angus, D. E., & Bégin, M. (2000). Governance in health care: Dysfunctions and challenges. Governance in the 21st Century / Gouvernance Au 21e Siècle. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442657571-008