COURSE:

NR506NP – Healthcare Policy and Leadership

Preparing the Discussion

You are a family nurse practitioner working in an outpatient primary care office of a large hospital system. The practice has been operating for over 15 years, and many of the administrative and clinical staff were hired when the practice opened. You have been in the practice for less than 3 months. In that short amount of time, you have witnessed several of the clinical staff engaging in heated arguments with each other, sometimes in patient areas. You overhear an argument occurring today between two staff. You pick up a patient’s chart and notice a very low blood pressure that the medical assistant failed to notify you about. When you confront the MA, she states that she was going to report the vital signs to you when she became engaged in the heated argument you overheard and forgot to notify you.

Unfortunately, this pattern of behavior is not unusual in this practice. Working with staff who cannot cooperate effectively can negatively influence your ability to spend time with patients, can impede the flow of patients through the office, and could impact patient safety.

Case Study Responses: 

1. Analyze the case study for potential issues for members of the healthcare team from office conflict. Contrast the potential effects for each member of the healthcare team based on the required readings from the week. Discuss the potential ethical and legal implications for each of the following practice members:
   • Medical assistant
   • Nurse Practitioner
   • Medical Director
   • Practice
2. What strategies would you implement to prevent further episodes of potentially dangerous patient outcomes?
3. What leadership qualities would you apply to effect positive change in the practice? Focus on the culture of the practice.
4. A scholarly resource must be used for EACH discussion question each week.

Solution

Potential issues for members of the healthcare team

• Medical assistant (MA)

The MA failed in her duty to notify the nurse practitioner (NP) of the patient’s low blood pressure (BP), demonstrating ignorance and negligence of her duty and lack of professionalism (Szalados, 2021). A low BP is vital and can lead to unwanted health complications, which would mean a possible litigation process with the patient or their family suing the healthcare practice for malpractice and negligence. The MA also failed in her duty to maintain patient beneficence (do good) by prioritizing the argument over-reporting the vitals and non-maleficence (by leaving the patient and ignoring her low BP state that could result in harm if not timely attended) (Leuter et al., 2018).

• Nurse Practitioner

The NP is responsible for supervising and directing the MA. Being the NP on duty, I have the……………………………$10