The Four Health Care Ethics Improve Patient Care

One of the major areas of strength of the AMA Code of Ethics is the principle that outlines that the physician must “regard responsibility to the patient as paramount” (American Medical Association, n.d., par. 9). This principle outlines that importance of putting the patient first in all care aspects when working with a patient. Along with this, other principles set forth in the AMA Code of Ethics, while involving other aspects of care, state that the rights of the patient shall be acknowledged and followed during patient care. It is very important that healthcare codes of ethics are clear in defining that the patient needs to be considered first and foremost.

In health and social care, four key Ethical Principles that are taken into account during these settings. Which are:

In health and social care sector, health care professionals take into account four key ethical principles when providing service to the service users. The key ethical principles are justice, autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence. In health and social care settings people must be treated fairly without being judgemental regardless of who they are or where they come from. Health care professionals must allow their service users choose the type of services or treatment they want and the professional should support them in getting quality care that will benefit their service users. Also, health care professional must not

Ethics is a strongly culturally linked area of philosophy interrelated with what is considered acceptable human conduct. There are two branches of ethics; medical ethics and bioethics. The moral conduct and principles which govern practices of medical and health professionals falls under medical ethics, whereas in biomedicine and the health sciences theorised developments in the study of social and moral issues is considered bioethics(1). There are two philosophical principles within the conduction of health care research these are deontology and utilitarianism. Deontology is an approach to ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves, as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions (2). Utilitarianism states that the most benefit

For example, the Hippocratic oat, the prayer of Moses Maimonides, the bible, the Holy Koran, and the Islamic legacy, as well as cultures, traditions, and social morality have shaped and guided the development of ethical standards in the medical profession. The majority of these historical documents focus on “avoiding harm to patients” Ethics refers to a professional moral conduct. Ethics, particularly professional ethics, describes the moral actions based on professional character and ethical principles in each profession. The statements of medical ethics require the health care providers to do what is best for the patient and place the patients’ interests before the interests of the physician. Above all, the purpose of medical ethics is to protect and defend human dignity and patients’

There are four principles of ethics: Respect for autonomy, Beneficence, Non maleficence and Justice. This four principles offers comprehensive thought of the ethical issues in clinical settings (Beauchamp and Childress 2001 cited in UK Clinical ethics Network 2011).

Health care leadership begins with creating an honest environment. The core principles of ethics are beneficence (do good), nonmaleficence (do not harm), autonomy (control by the individual), and justice (fairness) (Flite and Harman 2013). Health care professionals has the responsibility of dealing with complex patient and healthcare system issues. According to, Limentani (1998), a code of ethics can assists with facilitating

There are four main ethical ideas that should be taken into account in the health and social care sector. They are:

The role of the Ethics committee in maintaining and sustaining the four ethical and legal principles of health care vis-à-vis the ACA and its applications to the hospital.

Ethics are rules of conduct and moral principles of an individual which have various origins such as family, culture, and social environment. Given the diversity of people in the healthcare profession and the importance of providing care that is ethically sound

The third principle is autonomy; it deals with the ability to practice as a nurse and also it refers to the patient being able to make the decisions they want on their own. The issue is what constitutes good for a patient without infringing on the patient's autonomy or letting the patient come to serious harm.

The four principles of medical ethics include nonmaleficence, beneficence, autonomy, and justice. These principles were created by Beauchamp and James Childress because they felt these four were the building blocks of people’s morality. Nonmaleficence is to do no harm to others. Beneficence is to care or help others. Autonomy is to respect another’s wishes. These four principles relate to issues surrounding physician-assisted death in many ways. To begin, there are seven individual forms of PAD. They are the following; voluntary passive euthanasia, nonvoluntary passive euthanasia, involuntary passive euthanasia, voluntary active euthanasia, nonvoluntary active euthanasia, involuntary active euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide. Passive euthanasia is an act in which the health care physician withholds treatment or surgery and the result is the patient’s death. An example of passive euthanasia is a cancer patient refusing treatment and the physician agrees with their decision, therefore the patient dies from the lack of intervention to treat their illness. Active euthanasia is an act in which the health care physician has a direct contact with the patient’s death due to the physician’s act of doing something to the patient in order for them to die. An example of active euthanasia is an injection of potassium chloride. Voluntary is when the patient is requesting assistance to die. Nonvoluntary is when the patient is not requesting assistance and their wishes are unknown

Ethical Principles Nurses are required to make responsible judgments, decisions, and actions. Consequently, they have to uphold the ethics governing the profession, and guarantee quality and safety when making decisions related to patients. In addition, nurses should respect patients and remain unobstructed by their social or economic status, individual attributes, or medical conditions (Winland-Brown, Lachman, & Swanson, 2015a). Nurses should promote health and care, preserve wholeness of character and honesty, and observe professionalism (Winland-Brown, Lachman, & Swanson, 2015b). In addition, they have to be accountable for every single decision that they make.

This includes a thorough explanation of what they will be doing while servicing a patient. The seventh principle is that they must accept the responsibility to protect the public and the profession from unethical, incompetent, or illegal acts. This means that if they are aware of any unethical acts, they are obligated to report them. The eight and final principle is that they must participate in efforts to address the health needs of the public (Code of Ethics).

To summarise the four principles are seen to be secular but with depth they are parallel to scriptures in the bible and religious beliefs. However, medical professionals sometimes need to make decisions for the patient which may not fit the religious criteria, for example if two patients needed the same treatment but only one medical professional was there to perform the procedure the doctor performing would have to decide which patient should have it. This reject religious principles because God gave us life, he should be the only one to have the authority to take away our life.