Discuss Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs

When a patient enters the health center, medication is very likely to be administered. A health history and a patient’s medical evaluation are important things to examine when administering medication. A nurse or doctor should administer the care of the condition and be informed of the standard a condition should be offered depending on a background of health and physical inspection (Rosenthal & Burchum, 2020). In this discussion, the essay focuses on Scenario 2 to clarify the ethical and legal ramifications of patient family, prescriber, pharmacist and patient to all parties concerned. The discussion continues by explaining the methods I will use to drive decision-making for an experienced clinical nurse in the selected scenario.

Selected scenario

A colleague calls and demands for drugs to be taken for her. You are self-sufficient, but do not have the medical experience of your mate. Anyway, you write the drug. The ethical, as well as legal implications of the scenario on all stakeholders such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and patient’s family, discuss as follow:

Nurse Practitioner: A nurse who uses medications without performing the requisite testing, evaluation and legal consequences such as absence, as needed by the medical code of ethics, such as the Colorado “Medical Practice Act,” breaches the code and is unprofessional (Sabatino & Pruchnicki, 2017). The NP who prescribes medication for a friend without a medical background fears jeopardizing his permit since adverse reactions can turn fatal. A nurse has the ethical obligation to prescribe the best medication, but only after a medical exam and evaluation.

Pharmacist: In mediation, a pharmacy dealer who carries out a prescription does not presume that the prescriber has made an examination, nor that the practitioner is ethically and legitimately liable for the background before the order is submitted. Thus, loading the Rx with the pharmacist’s chance of losing the license while knowing his clinical background.

Patient and family: Prescribing drugs to a patient is morally and technically permissible whether a patient may not have an awareness of his or her background, evaluation and allergies. Therefore the patient and the relatives will bring court charges against the nurse and pharmacy firm should any incident take place.

Strategies to Guide Decision making

The first strategy is to call the patient before prescribing medication and to make an appropriate date for a medical evaluation to reach the condition. Medical testing and an assessment may lead to the patient’s medical condition and, therefore, to the required medication (Musellim & Borekci, 2017). In medical and personal interactions, faulty and incorrect prescribe inaccurate medications, less frequent usage for preventive treatment, loss of medical satisfactions, and escalated aggressive incidents against healthcare providers, maybe the result of a patient’s evaluation over a short duration of time. The patient assessment period could have been influenced too gradually or too rapidly.

The second strategy is to do the clinical examination before administering medication to assess the condition of the patient. Clinical trials are study experiments in which patients actively undergo experimental therapeutic techniques, techniques or measures in order to avoid, diagnose, cure or control various conditions or diseases (Rosenthal & Burchum, 2020). Some studies consider how people react to a new procedure and what side effects may be created. The third method is to implement a prescriptive decision-making process by looking at the patient’s family members and their prior fitness. The prescriptive method of educated judgment aid approaches describes a variety of strategies to enable citizens to think differently about a decision.

Process of Writing Prescriptions

There are important things that physicians should consider before writing medications. Relevant elements must also be considered. Again, it is necessary to remember that there are norms in various countries. The criteria specify that the details on medications are provided. Both medications usually tend to use a vocabulary the consumer can understand such that they can learn quickly how to take medicine. Secondly, it is important to write clearly in writing while writing the medication (Solanki & Shah, 2015). Third, it is necessary to determine the duration of usage of the medication and the days the patient is supposed to take. Additional detail used is subject to local drug laws. With the exponential advancement of technology, electronic prescribing will continue to reduce the cost-effectiveness of drug mistakes. Electronic prescribing is an efficient means of eliminating medication errors. The continuous dependency on handwriting writing is one of the factors that have made medication mistakes inevitable (Nickless & Davies, 2016). Handwritten prescriptions might be negligible. Problems like this can be overcome by technology-based prescribing, as this will help to reduce drug mistakes.

References
Musellim, B., & Borekci, S. (2017). What should be the appropriate minimal duration for patient examination and evaluation in pulmonary outpatient clinics? Annals of Thoracic Medicine, 12(3), 177–182. doi:10.4103/atm.ATM_396_16

Nickless, G., & Davies, R. (2016). How to take an accurate and detailed medication history. The Pharmaceutical Journal.

Rosenthal, L., & Burchum, J. (2020). Lehne’s Pharmacotherapeutics for Advanced Practice Nurses and Physician Assistants. Elsevier – Health Sciences Division.

Sabatino, J. A., & Pruchnicki, M. C. (2017). Improving prescribing practices: A pharmacist-led educational intervention for nurse practitioner students. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 29(5), 248-254. doi:10.1002/2327-6924.12446

Solanki, N. D., & Shah, C. (2015). Prescription audit in outpatient department of multispecialty hospital in western India: an observational study. International Journal of Clinical Trials, 14-19.

Assignment: Ethical and Legal Implications of Prescribing Drugs
What type of drug should you prescribe based on your patient’s diagnosis? How much of the drug should the patient receive? How often should the drug be administered? When should the drug not be prescribed? Are there individual patient factors that could create complications when taking the drug? Should you be prescribing drugs to this patient? How might different state regulations affect the prescribing of this drug to this patient?

These are some of the questions you might consider when selecting a treatment plan for a patient.

Photo Credit: Getty Images/Caiaimage

As an advanced practice nurse prescribing drugs, you are held accountable for people’s lives every day. Patients and their families will often place trust in you because of your position. With this trust comes power and responsibility, as well as an ethical and legal obligation to “do no harm.” It is important that you are aware of current professional, legal, and ethical standards for advanced practice nurses with prescriptive authority. Additionally, it is important to ensure that the treatment plans and administration/prescribing of drugs is in accordance with the regulations of the state in which you practice. Understanding how these regulations may affect the prescribing of certain drugs in different states may have a significant impact on your patient’s treatment plan. In this Assignment, you explore ethical and legal implications of scenarios and consider how to appropriately respond.

To Prepare
Review the Resources for this module and consider the legal and ethical implications of prescribing prescription drugs, disclosure, and nondisclosure.
Review the scenario assigned by your Instructor for this Assignment.
Search specific laws and standards for prescribing prescription drugs and for addressing medication errors for your state or region, and reflect on these as you review the scenario assigned by your Instructor.
Consider the ethical and legal implications of the scenario for all stakeholders involved, such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and patient’s family.
Think about two strategies that you, as an advanced practice nurse, would use to guide your ethically and legally responsible decision-making in this scenario, including whether you would disclose any medication errors.
By Day 7 of Week 1
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.
Explain the process of writing prescriptions, including strategies to minimize medication errors.
Reminder: The College of Nursing requires that all papers submitted include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. The College of Nursing Writing Template with Instructions provided at the Walden Writing Center offers an example of those required elements (available at https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/templates/general#s-lg-box-20293632). All papers submitted must use this formatting.

Submission and Grading Information
To submit your completed Assignment for review and grading, do the following:

Please save your Assignment using the naming convention “WK1Assgn+last name+first initial.(extension)” as the name.
Click the Week 1 Assignment Rubric to review the Grading Criteria for the Assignment.
Click the Week 1 Assignment link. You will also be able to “View Rubric” for grading criteria from this area.
Next, from the Attach File area, click on the Browse My Computer button. Find the document you saved as “WK1Assgn+last name+first initial.(extension)” and click Open.
If applicable: From the Plagiarism Tools area, click the checkbox for I agree to submit my paper(s) to the Global Reference Database.
Click on the Submit button to complete your submission.
NURS_6521_Week1_Assignment_Rubric

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List View
Excellent Good Fair Poor
Explain the ethical and legal implications of the scenario you selected on all stakeholders involved such as the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and the patient’s family.
23 (23%) – 25 (25%)
The response accurately and thoroughly explains in detail the ethical and legal implications of the scenario selected on all stakeholders involved.
The response includes accurate, clear, and detailed explanations as to how these implications affect the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and the patient’s family.

20 (20%) – 22 (22%)
The response explains the ethical and legal implications of the scenario selected on all stakeholders involved.
The response includes accurate explanations as to how these implications affect the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and the patient’s family.

18 (18%) – 19 (19%)
The response inaccurately or vaguely explains the ethical and legal implications of the scenario selected for all stakeholders involved.
The response includes vague explanations as to how these implications affect the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and the patient’s family.

0 (0%) – 17 (17%)
The response vaguely and inaccurately explains the ethical and legal implications of the scenario selected for all stakeholders involved, or the response is missing.
The response vaguely and inaccurately explains how these implications affect the prescriber, pharmacist, patient, and the patient’s family, or is missing.

Describe strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure as identified in the scenario selected. Be sure to reference laws specific to your state.
18 (18%) – 20 (20%)
An accurate, detailed, and clear description of strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure as identified in the scenario selected is provided.
The response includes specific, detailed, and accurate reference to state laws related to the scenario.

16 (16%) – 17 (17%)
An accurate description of strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure as identified in the scenario selected is provided.
The response includes accurate reference to state laws related to the scenario.

14 (14%) – 15 (15%)
A vague or inaccurate description of strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure as identified in the scenario selected is provided.
The response includes inaccurate or vague reference to state laws related to the scenario.

0 (0%) – 13 (13%)
A vague and inaccurate description of strategies to address disclosure and nondisclosure as identified in the scenario selected is provided, or is missing.
The response includes vague and inaccurate reference to state laws related to the scenario, or is missing.

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.
18 (18%) – 20 (20%)
The response accurately and thoroughly explains in detail at least two strategies that an advanced practice nurse would use to guide decision making in the scenario.
The response accurately and completely explains whether they would disclose the error, including an accurate, detailed, and clear justification for the explanation provided.

16 (16%) – 17 (17%)
The response accurately explains at least two strategies that an advanced practice nurse would use to guide decision making in the scenario.
The response accurately explains whether they would disclose the error, including an accurate justification for the explanation provided.

14 (14%) – 15 (15%)
The response inaccurately or vaguely explains at least two strategies that an advanced practice nurse would use to guide decision making in the scenario, or only explains one strategy.
The response inaccurately or vaguely explains whether they would disclose the error, including a justification that is vague, inaccurate, or misaligned to the explanation provided.

0 (0%) – 13 (13%)
The response inaccurately and vaguely explains only one strategy that an advanced practice nurse would use to guide decision making in the scenario, or is missing.
The response inaccurately and vaguely explains whether they would disclose the error, with no justification provided, or is missing.

Explain the process of writing prescriptions including strategies to minimize medication errors.
18 (18%) – 20 (20%)
The response provides an accurate, detailed, and thorough explanation of the process of writing prescriptions, including detailed strategies to minimize medication errors.
16 (16%) – 17 (17%)
The response provides an accurate explanation of the process of writing prescriptions, including some strategies to minimize medication errors.
14 (14%) – 15 (15%)
The response provides an inaccurate or vague explanation of the process of writing prescriptions, including inaccurate or vague strategies to minimize medication errors.
0 (0%) – 13 (13%)
The response provides an inaccurate and vague explanation of the process of writing prescriptions, including inaccurate and vague strategies to minimize medication errors, or is missing.
Written Expression and Formatting – Paragraph Development and Organization:
Paragraphs make clear points that support well developed ideas, flow logically, and demonstrate continuity of ideas. Sentences are carefully focused–neither long and rambling nor short and lacking substance.
5 (5%) – 5 (5%)
Paragraphs and sentences follow writing standards for flow, continuity, and clarity.
4 (4%) – 4 (4%)
Paragraphs and sentences follow writing standards for flow, continuity, and clarity 80% of the time.
3.5 (3.5%) – 3.5 (3.5%)
Paragraphs and sentences follow writing standards for flow, continuity, and clarity 60%–79% of the time.
0 (0%) – 3 (3%)
Paragraphs and sentences follow writing standards for flow, continuity, and clarity less than 60% of the time.
Written Expression and Formatting – English writing standards:
Correct grammar, mechanics, and proper punctuation
5 (5%) – 5 (5%)
Uses correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation with no errors
4 (4%) – 4 (4%)
Contains a few (1–2) grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors
3.5 (3.5%) – 3.5 (3.5%)
Contains several (3–4) grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors
0 (0%) – 3 (3%)
Contains many (≥ 5) grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors that interfere with the reader’s understanding
Written Expression and Formatting – The paper follows correct APA format for title page, headings, font, spacing, margins, indentations, page numbers, running head, parenthetical/in-text citations, and reference list.
5 (5%) – 5 (5%)
Uses correct APA format with no errors
4 (4%) – 4 (4%)
Contains a few (1–2) APA format errors
3.5 (3.5%) – 3.5 (3.5%)
Contains several (3–4) APA format errors
0 (0%) – 3 (3%)
Contains many (≥ 5) APA format errors
Total Points: 100
Name: NURS_6521_Week1_Assignment_Rubric