Healthcare Consent legislation Essay Example for Free

Healthcare Consent legislation Essay Healthcare Consent legislation applies to everyone above the age of 18 (some places 16) and has the following rights (Ref 1) 1)The right to give or refuse consent 2)The right to choose a particular form of healthcare on any grounds including moral or religious grounds 3)The right to revoke consent 4)The right to expect that a decision to give, refuse or revoke consent will be respected 5) The right to be involved to the greatest degree possible in all case planning and decision making Mostly all nursing actions are an invasion of a person’s privacy and giving consent is carried out by going into the hospital or being treated at home. So one can say that consent is based on the principle of respect for a fellow human being. (Ref 1,2) This legislation tells me that all patients and clients have a right to receive information about their condition. As a nurse I should be sensitive to their needs and respect the wishes of those who refuse or are unable to receive such information. (Ref 1,2) For instance, there may be a language barrier and I should not just go about reading the consent form in English, rather I should arrange for a interpreter or find a nurse who speaks the clients language. I also respect their decision of autonomy-their decision to accept or decline any health intervention even if a refusal means loss of life, example Jehovah s witness refusing blood transfusion. The client will now have alternate options given by the Health Care Providers. Informed consent is obtained by a legally competent person, who voluntarily accepts or declines the consent after being informed of the treatment including side effects, adverse effects.(Ref 1,2) Many people are frightened by unfamiliar medical procedures and interventions and may thus want to back off from any treatment. This decision should be respected, and the client should not be forced into taking any of these medication or treatment. Rather the nurse can educate them to the best of her education and training if the client wants to know about it. Historically dating back to 1914, it was Justice Cardoza who changed the concept of research ethics involving human beings. The foundation of modern day informed consent is based on his statement â€Å"Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what should be done with his (or her) own body.†(3) There were many historical events that lead to present day consent acts. Some of them were as follows (ref #3) 1) Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in Black  Men (1932-1973) 2) The Nuremberg Code as a result of the Nazi Medical Experiment during World War II (1947) 3) The Thalidomide experiment that resulted in birth defects (1950) 4) The declaration of Helsinki (1964) I feel these events all had a big role in shaping modern day HCCA and Consent legislature.Previously, a simple consent question would be â€Å"did the patient agree to surgery?† (Ref 2), which now has evolved into â€Å"Did the physician provide the patient with adequate amount of information for the patient to consent?† This newer version of the legislation allows the nurse to participate in proper advocacy so as to promote patient autonomy in self-determination. Initially informed consent meant saying â€Å"YES† to any treatment or intervention laid out by the physician and advocated by a nurse (Ref 1). Now informed consent means being able to say â€Å"NO† and this in itself is a part of exercising ones autonomy.(Ref2)Nurses should practice with the knowledge that clients must consent to be touched ,to have treatments administered , to undergo surgery, for bathing, positioning, taking vital signs, physical assessment ,changing dressings, venipuncture,wo und irrigation, catheter insertion just to name a few. If a patient or client is not capable of giving consent then besides the HCCA (1996) Ontario does have the Substitute Decision Act(1992) SDA . This act allows a substitute decision maker –a spouse, a relative, a parent and in the absence of these someone can be appointed by legal authority if the patient has not indicated otherwise. In emergencies where the priority is preservation of life, a nurse or HCP can provide care to the patient or client without their consent if they are incapacitated, provided it is demonstrated that this action was carried out in the best interest of the patient or client.(Ref 1) In conclusion, I can say that nurses are patient advocates and an essential member of the healthcare team contributing meaningfully to the informed consent process. There are many barriers to the HCCA especially in terms of informed consent, but the well informed and knowledgeable nurse is competent enough to have a thorough understanding of her clients’ needs. She being the clients best advocate will implement the informed consent procedure so as to maintain the clients’ autonomousity so that he or she can maintain their self-determination. This legislation has allowed nurses to be accountable for the best interest of the client and  carry out their role as a client advocate.

Distance Learning Essay -- Argumentative Persuasive Essays

Distance Learning Distance education can trace its roots to 1840 when Sir Isaac Pitman, the English inventor of shorthand, came up with an idea for delivering instruction to a potentially limitless audience: correspondence courses by mail. By the 1900s, the first department of correspondence teaching was established at the University of Chicago. The founding of the United Kingdom’s Open University in 1969 marked a significant development of the newest phase of distance learning involving a mixed-media approach to teaching (Matthews 1999). Distance education takes place when a teacher and student are separated by physical distance and technology (in the form of print, voice, video and/or data) is used to bridge the instructional gap. (Willis & Dickinson 1997) Today, in addition to serving the learner who lives far from campus, distance education is aimed at part-time students, time-strapped adults learners, and students trying to work full-time while earning degrees. Virtual classrooms are not aimed at the traditional market of young college people, but disciplined adult learners. The benefits such students reap include: increased access to higher learning, flexible scheduling of personal time, convenient location, individualized attention by the instructor, less travel, and increased time to think about and respond to questions posed by the instructor. At a cursory glance, distance education appears to be working. With few exceptions, most of the research writings suggest that the learning outcomes of students using technology at a distance are similar to those of students who participate in conventional classroom instruction. The "no significant difference" finding has become accepted as fact. But th... .... Steven P. Crow. Available: WWW URL: http://www.aaup.org/319let.htm Phipps, Ronald and Merisotis, James (1999). What’s the difference? A review of contemporary research on the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education. Available: WWW URL: http://www.aaup.org/319let.htm Schneider, Alison (1999). AAUP seeks greater faculty role in distance-education. Chronicle of Higher Education, 45(42), p. A34. Sherry, L. (1996). Issues in distance learning. International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 1(4), pp. 337-365. Willis, Barry and Dickinson, John (1997). Distance Education and the World Wide Web. In Khan (ed.), Web-Based Instruction, (pp. 81-84). Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Educational Technology Publications. Willis, Barry (1992). Strategies for teaching at a distance. ERIC Document Reproduction Services No. ED 351 007.

Issues in Human Resource Strategies That Improve Organizational Performance Essay

A rapidly changing economic environment, characterized by such phenomena as the globalization, and deregulation of markets, changing customer and investor demands, and ever increasing product market competition, has become the norm for most organization. To compete, they must continually improve their performance by reducing costs; innovating products and processes; improving quality, productivity, and speed to market; and more importantly by improving their individual performance within the organization. In order to do this, a set of distinctive human resource strategies, defined as internally consistent bundles of human resource practices (Dyer & Reeves, 1995), is clearly essential. Sparrow and Marchington (1998) suggested that HR practices are the most advanced, the most sophisticated, and the most efficient basis for organizing and for obtaining high performance from employees since it seeks to strategically integrate the interests of an organization and its employees. In addition, a number of studies have also indicated that there is a positive relationship between effective HR strategies and organizational performance. Specifically, it is suggested that HR practices can improve organizational and operational performance when matched with quality manufacturing strategies (Stone, 2002). Nevertheless, despite the positive relationship found between HR practices and firm performance, there are a number of issues and questions surrounding them. One problem in relating HRM and performance is the lack of theoretical background; resulting in both terms remain ambiguous concepts. Other questions arise in relation with the link between HR strategies and performance are the inconsistent findings in regards to what constitutes a high performance HR strategy (Becker & Gerhart, 1996; Cooke, 2001) and the problems with HRM and performance measurements (Guest et al. , 2003). The aim of this essay is to outline and explain the issues in developing human resource strategies that improve organizational performance. Specifically, the essay shall begin with presenting the issue of theoretical background of the concept of HRM and organizational performance. Subsequently, it shall discuss the issue about diversified strategies used to improve performance, and the problems in measuring HRM and performance. ?HRM and Organizational Performance: The Lack of Theoretical Background Guest (1997) pointed out that to improve our understanding of the impact of HRM on performance; we need a theory about HRM, a theory about performance, and a theory about how they are linked. Unfortunately, there has been a great deal of debates amongst leading researchers and practitioners about the concept and contributions of HRM practice in managing employees in overall organizational objectives (Loosemore, Dainty & Lingard, 2003; Analoui, 1998; Sparrow & Marchington, 1998). McCarthy and Stone (1986) argued that the concept of HRM is ambiguous and that its contribution to organizational performance remains unclear and is not well understood. In addition, Sparrow and Marchington (1998) pointed out that rather than adding value to the business through its strategic integration with managerial objectives, HRM can remain a disappointingly mechanistic function. Similarly, there is no universal theory about performance (Guest, 1997). It was proposed that the meaning of performance involves two dimensions; the types of criteria and the weight of each. Organizations have different interpretations of performance according to the sector of their industries. Service providers, for example, might consider customer satisfaction as their top performance indicator, while manufacturers might view inventory level as an important criterion to measure their performance level. In addition, some organizations put financial results on top of their performance indicator list and employee’s job satisfaction at the bottom, but others may view this in the opposite position. As a result, it is hard, if not impossible, to define the concept of performance that applicable for all organizations. The impact of HR practices on firm performance is without a doubt an important topic in the fields of human resource management, industrial relations, and industrial and organizational psychology (Huselid, 1995; Jones & Wright, 1992). This literature, although largely conceptual, concludes that HR practices can help to create a source of sustained competitive advantage, especially when they are aligned with a firm’s competitive strategy (Jackson & Schuler, 1995; Wright & McMahan, 1992, both as cited in Huselid, 1995). Specifically, a large majority of published studies found an association between HR practices and firm performance, regardless of whether they are cross-sectional or longitudinal, whether conducted at establishment or company level, whether based on strong performance data or subjective estimates, whatever sector they are based on, whatever operational definition of HRM is used, and wherever they are conducted (Guest et al. , 2003). Nevertheless, despite the positive thrust of most empirical findings, Wood and de Menezes (1998, as cited in Guest et al. 2003) failed to find consistent associations between HRM and performance. Furthermore, Wood (1999) has also argued that the relationship between HRM and performance is relatively weak. One possible explanation lies in the various contingency factors, other than HR activities, that might contribute to organizational performance such as organizational culture (Kotter & Heskett, 1992; Van der Post et al. , 1998), business strategy (Richard & Brown Johnson, 1999), and political considerations (Ferris et al. 1998). ?Improvement Strategies: Is There One Best Way? Much of the research on the link between HRM and firm performance has looked at single HR practice such as compensation or selection, while others attempted to look on the impact of combining different HR practices to improve firm performance (Becker & Gerhart, 1996). Pfeffer (1998, as cited in Tyson, 1997), for instance, put forward a seven-principle best practice which he believed is universally applicable. The seven best practice HRM elements include; employment security, selective hiring, self managed teams, high compensation contingent on organizational performance, extensive training, reduction of status difference, and information sharing. Theoretically, bundling several HR practices should produce greater performance effects than any of the individual human practices (Dyer & Reeves, 1995). However, in reality, there is no single standardized bundle of HR strategies that is universally applicable for all organizations. Each firm might require different bundles of HR strategies to improve its organizational performance.

How to Make Distilled Water

Distilled water is purified water produced by condensing steam or water vapor from impure water, such as well water, seawater, tap water, snow, streams, or even plants or damp rock. You can distill water to further purify the water you have, to make drinking water for emergencies, or to obtain water while on camping trips. There are several methods for making distilled water, so you can save yourself some money and distill it yourself rather than buying it at the store. Which of several methods to use to distill water depends on the resources you have available and whether you are distilling impure water or have to get water from the air or plants. Distill Water on Your Stove, Grill or Campfire You can make distilled water over a stove, grill, or campfire quite easily. You need a large container of water, a smaller collection container that either floats in the first container or can be propped up above the water level, a rounded or pointed lid that fits the big container  (turned upside down so that when the steam condenses, the water drips into your smaller container), and some ice. Here is a recommended material list: 5-gallon stainless steel or aluminum potRounded lid for the potGlass or metal bowl that floats inside the potIce cubesHot pads Fill the large pot partly full of water.Set the collection bowl in the pot. The plan is to collect water dripping from the center of the inverted pan lid, so choose the size of the bowl to make sure the distilled water wont just drip back into the main pot.Set the pot lid upside down on the pot. When you heat the water, water vapor will rise up to the lid, condense into droplets, and fall into your bowl.Turn on the heat for the pan. The water needs to get very hot, but its OK if it doesnt boil.Put ice cubes on top of the lid of the pot. The cold will help to condense the steam in the pot into liquid water.When complete, turn off the heat and use care to remove the bowl of distilled water. Store distilled water in a clean, preferably sterile container (dishwasher clean or else immersed in boiling water). Use a container intended for long-term storage of water because other containers may have contaminants that would leach into your water over time, undoing all your work to get pure water. Collect Water in an Outside Container A similar method is to heat water in a pot but collect the distilled water in an outside container. You can be as creative as you like with your setup for this. Just be sure to collect the distilled water and not the pot water. One option is to use a funnel over the boiling water container that is connected to the collection bottle with aquarium tubing. For the funnel to drain into your collection bottle, you want to empty the tubing at a lower level than the funnel. Otherwise, the method is the same. The advantages include safety (you dont need to wait for the pot to cool to get your water) and reduced risk of contamination from the source water. Contamination is not a big concern when youre purifying rain or tap water but may be more of a consideration if youre trying to make nonpotable water safe enough to drink. Distill Water From Rain or Snow Rain and snow are two forms of naturally distilled water. Water evaporates from the ocean, lakes, rivers, and the land and condenses in the atmosphere to fall as precipitation. Unless you live in a highly polluted area, the water is pure and safe to drink. (Do not collect rainwater that comes off an asphalt shingle roof through the gutters for this procedure.) Collect rain or snow in a clean container. Allow a day or so for any sediment to fall to the bottom of the bowl. In most cases, you can pour off the clean water and drink it as-is; however, you can include additional filtration steps, such as running the water through a coffee filter or boiling it. Water keeps best if its refrigerated, but you can keep it indefinitely in a clean, sealed container at room temperature, too. Use Home Distillation Kits Unless youre collecting rain or snow, water distillation costs money because it uses fuel or electricity to heat the source water. Its cheaper to buy bottled distilled water than it is to make it on your stove. However, if you use a home distiller, you can make distilled water more cheaply than you can buy it. Home distillation kits range in price from about $100 to several hundred dollars. If youre making distilled water for drinking, the less expensive kits are fine. More expensive kits are used for lab work or for processing large volumes of water to supply water needs for an entire house. Distill Water From Plants or Mud While out camping or in serious emergency situations, you can distill water from virtually any source of water. If you understand the basic principle, you likely can imagine many potential setups. Heres an example of a method used to extract water from desert plants. Note that this is a time-consuming process. Green plantsPlastic wrapCoffee can or other clean containerSmall rocks Dig a hole in the ground in a sunny location.Place the coffee can in the center of the bottom of the hole to collect the water.Pile up damp plants in the hole around the coffee can.Cover the hole with a piece of plastic wrap. You can secure it using rocks or dirt. Ideally, you want to seal the plastic so no moisture escapes. The greenhouse effect  will trap heat inside the plastic, aiding in the evaporation of the water.Place a pebble in the center of the plastic wrap to create a small depression. As water evaporates, the vapor will condense on the plastic and fall where you created the depression, dripping into the can. You can add fresh plants to keep the process going. Avoid using poisonous plants containing volatile toxins because they will contaminate your water. Cacti and ferns are good choices, where they are available. Ferns are edible, too.