You are the new manager of the Social Services Department of a small, 18-bed rur

Question

You are the new manager of the Social Services Department of a small, 18-bed rural hospital within the Bright Road Health Care System. As a member of the ethics committee for the hospital, you have been asked by the CEO and CFO to contribute to an initial discussion about whether or not to continue having labor and delivery in the hospital. You will speak with Board members and hospital staff members to uncover the hospital, patient, and community impact of such a decision. You will submit their recommendation, along with their rationale, to the committee.

Explanation / Answer

Facts:

1)Rural hospital

2)Small 18 bed hospital

Impacts:

1)Impact on hospital: In current statistics, birth rate has been increased substantially. If labor and delivery service has been discontinued, then hospital has to forgo revenue from this work.

On the other side, as this hospital is operating in rural area, we cannot charge exorbitant charges, but labor and

Delivery work involves lot of resource consumption. Cost benefit analysis can be done based on historical data

2)Impact on Patient: As hospital is operating in rural area, probably this might be only hospital operating in the area. If labor and delivery services are stopped at hospital, then patients might have to travel longer distances to avail these facilities in other hospitals.

3)Impact on community: As discussed earlier, if patients have to travel longer distances to avail of services of labor and delivery, then there might be chance of delay in obtaining these services. Delay in these kind of cases may result in to medical emergency for patients.

Recommendation:

If hospital chose to discontinue labor and delivery services, negative impact on patients and community is very severe. Therefore it is recommended for the hospital to continue with labor and delivery services.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse Y
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.